Wine Law

12 as the introduction in the national territory of the infringed goods, with the imprisonment up to two years and with a fine up to 20.000 €. This provision seems to be more effective than Article 517 of the Italian Criminal Code, which sanctions the unlawful behaviour, consisting in the offer on sale of products bearing signs, which may deceive consumers on the geographical origin, or quality of the goods, since, in the case of geographical indications and designations of origin, it is not required a concrete risk of confusion among consumers. The fact that the risk of confusion is not required, further confirms that this rule is mainly aimed at protecting the interests of the producers of DOs and GIs, more than the trust of consumers, as it happens, on the contrary, for other criminal rules against trademarks and other distinctive signs’ infringement, as said above. This element has been recently highlighted by the Italian Supreme Court, with its ruling no. 12270, of 20 March 2019, in a case of alleged infringement of a designation of origin in the wine sector. The concrete application of Article 517- quater of Italian Criminal Code appears to be rather strict. In this sense, it is worth mentioning that the Court of Asti, with its recent ruling of 8 May 2019, has condemned a producer, who used the designation “Barolo DOCG”, without respecting the rules foreseen by the government of use, to the imprisonment of six months and with a fine of 6000 euro (although with suspended sentence). In particular, the condemned producer violated the provisions of the government of use, since some winemaking operations, such as grape pressing and fermentation, were carried out outside the geographical area established for that designation of origin, despite the false declarations of the producers. This ruling seems to be really significant, since the Court, in order to assess the possibility to apply Article 517- quater of the Italian Criminal Code, has analysed in detail several provisions established by the government of use. That said, in case of a concrete risk of confusion on the origin of the product, also Article 517 of Italian Criminal Code may be applied, although not expressly foreseen for the infringement of designations of origin, or geographical indications, as Article 517- quater . In this connection, it is worth mentioning the so called “wine kit” case, which constitutes a real symbol of food counterfeiting of “Made in Italy”. In this model- fact situation, the infringers had realised powder preparations, for realising home wine,