Wine Law

6 “a name which identifies a product: a) originating in a specific place, region or, in exceptional cases, a country; b) whose quality or characteristics are essentially or exclusively due to a particular geographical environment with its inherent natural and human factors; and c) the production steps of which all take place in the defined geographical area”. This definition — which tweaked to some extent the original wording of the 1992 Regulation the details of which we cannot now look into 12 — shows a strict French-style formulation of the legal concept, not far removed from the one provided by the Lisbon Agreement. As we are focusing solely on the legal challenges of the framework, I will draw my attention to two elements: the conceptual peculiarity of the wine designations (2.1.) and the conceptual boundaries between those and the geographical indication category, whether related to wine or otherwise (2.2.). 2.1. Wine European geographical designations’ peculiarity European law had instituted in 1962 the concept of “quality wines produced in specified regions” (quality wines psr). Years later, Council Regulation (EC) No. 479/2008 of 29 April 2008, regulated the new common organisation of the market in wine, taking a significant step forward in the area being studied. As they veered away from the wine quality policies based on the concept behind quality wines psr and substituted their own concepts of the horizontal policy, European Union officials identified the failings of the previous approach. This significant step in the Europe-wide regulation of wine was driven by two factors 13 . The Commission had emphasised two years before — in the Communication to the Council and the European Parliament Towards a sustainable 12 See my study La denominación de origen… , op . cit ., for further elaboration on the issue. 13 For further explanations, MENJUCQ, M. (2010), “La nouvelle régulation communautaire du marché vitivinicole”, in MENJUCQ, M., et al., Histoire et actualités du droit viticole. La Robe et le Vin , Féret, Burdeos, p. 41.