Wine Law

GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS AND DESIGNATIONS OF ORIGIN 79 Court of Justice, in comparable cases. Indeed, the ECJ, with its ruling of 20 December 2017 (C-393/16), stated that the use of DO or GI for characterising a product other than those covered by said DO or GI, but containing it as an ingredient is not per se unlawful. However, national judges can, under the concrete circumstances, evaluate if the use of the designation of origin or geographical indication constitutes an exploitation of the reputation of the DO or GI and whether that use grants any substantial characteristic to the product. On the one hand, the ECJ applied this principle in a proceeding that started in Germany, by the consortium of the French Champagne AOP, which was being used by the German wholesale retailer, Aldi, in a lemon sorbet with a 12% of champagne, and calling it “Champagner Sorbet”. On the other hand, in Veneto, in October 2019, hundreds of bags of Pringles chips were seized by the Italian Authorities for presenting, on the label, the designation “prosecco chips”, despite the wine flavour being obtained by a powder rather than the original product13. Both uses are obviously very different. It is worth mentioning an interesting series of cases concerning designations of origin for vinegar – a product obtained from wine fermentation and ageing. Although only indirectly related to wine products, these decisions deserve to be mentioned since they show very well the different approaches, on the same factual and juridical aspect, of the ECJ and the different national Courts of merit. Considering that designations of origin and geographical indications (also in the field of wine products) may be composed by more than one term, including words not evocative of a geographical area but, for instance, directly related to a specific and qualitative characteristic of the product, there may be cases in which the extent of the DO or GI protection is disputed. An example of the above would be the case related to the protection of the term “balsamico”, used in the Aceto Balsamico di Modena GI. With the recent ruling of 04 December 2019 (C-432/18), the ECJ stated that “the protection of the name ‘Aceto Balsamico di Modena’ does not extend to the use of the individual non-geographical terms of that name”, which means that to the term “balsamico” would not be granted any autonomous protection if not directly associated to the GI’s geographical element, despite the term being directly evocative of the Italian vinegar, typical of Modena and Reggio Emilia. Notwithstanding the ECJ’s restrictive approach, the German Federal Court of Justice, on May 202014, granted protection to the Italian Aceto Balsamico di Modena GI, arguing that the protection is not limited to the sign as a whole but to the different terms included in the designation as well, 13 See https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/16/stop-you-cant-pop-prosecco-pringles-seizedin-italy. 14 See the decision of the Bundesgerichtshof of 28 May 2020, in case no. I ZR 253/16, in Darts.ip.

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