398 WINE LAW The set of legal norms known as Wine Law, which essentially regulate the production of grapes, their transformation into wine and their commercialisation, come from multiple sources, from national law, in its oldest form, and, more recently, from the European Union and international laws. For a long time, it was a designation to prevent counterfeiting or fraud in commerce6, so that the States did not decide to elevate the word wine to the category of a legal denomination. Even in antiquity, attempts were made to increase the quality of wine through appropriate laws and regulations and to prevent abuse. The oldest wine law comes from the Code of Hammurabi, which included a law that punished sellers of fraudulent wine, who were to be drowned in a river. The Roman Republic law also regulated the wholesale of wine and defined in the individual regulations what quality guarantee the buyer could expect and how the wine would be marketed. The Roman emperor Domitian issued, in 92 CE, an edict that banned the plantings of any new vineyards in Italy and ordered the uprooting of half of the vineyards in Roman provinces. In the early Middle Ages, quality criteria and classes were already introduced in the individual countries. Beyond the legend, Emperor Charlemagne (742-814) ordered white grapes to be planted in a red wine vineyard (Corton-Charlemagne) because the red wine stained his beard; he enacted significant viticultural laws. His detailed rules covering the planting of vines and winemaking helped many French and German vineyards out of the Dark Ages. Vine and Wine Law embraces the production, sale and consumption of wines, which are activities highly regulated by law. There is, therefore, a legal language, rigorous and precise concepts and definitions of vine and wine. 2.2. Griffe Law Among agricultural products, wine has a significant double characteristic from a legal point of view: the oldest and most complete regulation. In one of the oldest known legislations, the French loi Griffe (Griffe Law), of 14 August 1889, on fraud in the sale of wines, named after the senator who proposed it7, all stages from planting the vine to bottling and labelling are covered. Its ocasio legis arose from a period of general fraud, which lacked wine and adulterated 6 The oldest norm concerns the prevention of adding water to wine, a restriction included in article 42 of Regulation 1493/1939, in all authorised oenological practices. 7 Charles Antoine Jules Griffe (1825-1895) was a French magistrate and politician who regularly defended, in the Senate (Sénat), the winegrowers of Hérault, his hometown, and the interests of national winegrowing.
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