Wine Law

8 “the name of a region, a specific place or, in exceptional and duly justifiable cases, a country used to describe a product referred to in Article 92(1) fulfilling the following requirements: (i) the quality and characteristics of the product are essentially or exclusively due to a particular geographical environment with its inherent natural and human factors; (ii) the grapes from which the product is produced come exclusively from that geographical area; (iii) the production takes place in that geographical area; and (iv) the product is obtained from vine varieties belonging to Vitis vinifera ”. Regarding the horizontal Regulation we can identify a number of dissimilarities in this definition of the designation of origin for wine, most of which boiling down to shades of meaning: 1) the scheme seeks to focus, in terms of its scope, specifically on wine (including varieties such as liquor, sparkling, etc.), which is the core difference; 2) the wording of 2013 brings in, unlike that of 2008 and the horizontal Regulation, the fact that a designation of origin being the name of a country should be duly justified. In effect, we should understand that any exception, whatever the case might be, should be justified; 3) the grapes having to be grown in the geographical area — which does not make it stand out from the rest of designations of origin— is coupled with the protection being confined to a specific vine variety, as a guarantee of quality; 4) the connection between quality and the environment is vigorously and more sharply drawn, however, they appear to resist calibration: it appeals to “its quality and characteristics”, as opposed to “quality or characteristics” in Regulation No. 1151/2012; this, it would appear, seeks to impose an unspecific requirement of “quality”, steering away from specific — and maybe more dispassionate — “characteristics” of the product; 5) these quality and characteristics are to be attributed “essentially or exclusively” due to the environment, rather than “fundamentally or exclusively”: the contrast between “essential” and “fundamental” may suggest a greater reliance on the environment of the former; 6) the new Regulation makes use of “particular geographical environment” as a determining factor of the quality