Wine Law

5 The strategy, focused on the promotion of quality, through the establishment of strict requirements, has been really successful. As a matter of fact, nowadays Italy protects an impressive amount of designations of origin and geographical indications. According to the data of the Italian Ministry of Agriculture, updated to 2020, in Italy there are 118 PGI and 406 PDO. These latter shall be further divided between 75 DOCG and 331 DOC. Consequently, the total amount of protected PDOs e PGIs corresponds to 524, the highest number of the entire European Union 4 . Obviously, these numbers are not only the direct result of an effective legislation. In fact, the rules established through the decades have simply tried to preserve, promote and enhance the qualitative characteristics of a wine production characterised by a great biodiversity. The extension of every geographical indication and designation of origin may significantly vary. Some designations of origin cover several provinces and evenmore than one region, such as Prosecco DOC, which is produced in several provinces of Veneto and in Friuli. On the contrary, other PDOs and PGIs identify productions realised in a very small territory. Indeed, for instance, the territory of Bolgheri Sassicaia DOC, a prestigious Tuscanian wine, is entirely included in the vineyards of a single company, the famous Tenuta San Guido. Moreover, it has to be recalled that, according to Article 30 of the Italian Consolidated Law on Wine, geographical indications and designations of origin may coexist in the same territory. However, in this case, the designations of PDOs and GPIs shall not be identical and, consequently, the second designation shall adopt a different name, which, in any case, may refer to the relevant geographical area. Furthermore, the same provision foresees that DOC and DOCG productions may coexist in the same geographical are, meaning that a restricted area of a DOC may be recognised as a DOCG area of production. Concretely, this means that producers’ organisations may decide to raise the qualitative standards of their production, mirrored in more strict requirements introduced in the relevant specification of production, trying to obtain the recognition of a DOCG in a restricted area of a prior DOC geographical area. 4 Updated statistics available at : https://www.politicheagricole.it/flex/cm/pages/ServeBLOB.php/L/IT/IDP agina/309.