396 WINE LAW 1.2. Classification Ampelography is the field of botany concerned with identifying and classifying grapevines by comparing the shape and colour of the vine leaves and grape berries, more recently incremented by DNA fingerprinting. The genus Vitis, commonly known as grapevine, contains about sixty species, among which Vitis vinifera has a monopoly on the production of quality wines, as enshrined in the European Union regulations on wines of designation of origin (DO)2. The other wines, with or without geographical indications (GIs)3, are obtained from vine varieties belonging to Vitis vinifera or a cross between the Vitis vinifera species and other species of the genus Vitis. 2 According to article 93(1)(a) of Regulation (EU) 1308/2013, “designation of origin” means the name of a region, a specific place or, in exceptional and duly justifiable cases, a country used to describe an eligible product, namely the wine, that meets the following four 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; (iv) the product is obtained from vine varieties belonging to Vitis vinifera;”. The International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) pioneered this matter. The first international definition of Appellation of Origin was adopted in 1947 and updated in 1992 [definition of Recognised Appellation of Origin (RAO) and adopted the definition of Recognised Geographical Indication (RGI) and (OIV-ECO 2/92)]. For many years, the “Law and Consumer Information” (DROCON) Expert Group of the OIV Commission III “Economy and Law”, led by president Luigi Moio, has been working on preparing the recent Resolution OIV-ECO 656-2021, approved in the General Assembly of 12 July 2021, a Paris-hybrid meeting, to align the two new definitions of DO and IG, following the international definitions of the World Intellectual Property Organization and the World Trade Organization. For the Member States that recognise an Appellation of Origin, it is now defined as follows: “Any denomination recognised and protected by the competent authorities in the country of origin, consisting of or containing the name of a geographical area, or another denomination known as referring to such area, which serves to designate a wine or spirit beverage as originating in that geographical area, where the quality or characteristics of the wine or spirit beverage are due exclusively or essentially to the geographical environment, including natural and human factors, and which has given the wine or spirit beverage its reputation.”. 3 “Geographical indication”, according to article 93(1)(b) of Regulation (EU) 1308/2013, means: “an indication referring to 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) it possesses a specific quality, reputation or other characteristics attributable to that geographical origin; (ii) at least 85 % of the grapes used for its production come exclusively from that geographical area; (iii) its production takes place in that geographical area”. The new definition of Geographical Indication adopted by OIV in 2021 is: “Any denomination protected by the competent authorities of the country of origin, which identifies a wine or spirit beverage as originating in a specific geographical area, where a given quality, reputation or other characteristic of the wine or spirit beverage is essentially attributable to its geographical origin.”.
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