Terroir 1996 banner
IVES 9 IVES Conference Series 9 Tutela legale delle denominazioni di origine nel mondo (con aspetti applicativi)

Tutela legale delle denominazioni di origine nel mondo (con aspetti applicativi)

Abstract

Uno degli aspetti più importanti nel commercio internazionale dei vini a denominazione è quello del riconoscimento dei diritti di esclusiva garantiti sui e dal territorio geografico d’o­rigine. Al fine di cautelarsi nei confronti della sempre più agguerrita concorrenza mondiale, è opportuno adottare adeguate protezioni ufficiali e legali delle denominazioni che possono derivare sia dalla “naturalità” del prodotto stesso che dalla “originalità” più particolare. Per proteggere è importante, quindi, conoscere la diversa valenza commerciale e giuridica che ciascun Paese attribuisce ai termini “marchio” e “denominazione”.
L’Accordo TRIPS – Ginevra, 15 dicembre 1993 – si fonda essenzialmente sulla con­statazione della insufficiente omogeneità e garanzia offerta dalle discipline legali, giuridiche e commerciali nei diversi Paesi per i marchi non industriali e tale disomogeneità comporta una grave distorsione del mercato internazionale con evidenti effetti, non solo nella pro­duzione ma anche sulla lealtà concorrenziale e sulla tutela del consumatore finale.
La legge italiana pone sullo stesso piano dei marchi, costituiti da indicazioni proprie del prodotto, le indicazioni sulla sua origine o provenienza geografica: cioè, quando il nome geografico identifica per il consumatore una qualità tradizionale o una caratteristica del prodotto, esso è tutelabile solo come denominazione d’origine.
I marchi collettivi, come è nota, sono segni distintivi usati da soggetti diversi, anche nello stesso momento, per contraddistinguere prodotti uguali o affini e sono destinati a garantire l’origine, la natura e le caratteristiche tipologiche di determinati prodotti o servizi. Il mar­chio collettivo non si limita quindi solo ad una funzione di notificazione. Quello che è deter­minante non è la semplice provenienza del prodotto, ma è anche la correttezza profession­ale degli imprenditori che fornisce affidamento al consumatore sulla qualità o sull’origine del prodotto. Quando coesistono questi segni distintivi legati ad un prodotto, è fondamen­tale predisporre un regolamento o disciplinare d’uso della denominazione di origine del prodotto, in cui si devono ricomprendere anche attività di controllo e sanzioni contro un uti­lizzo della denominazione contrario alle sue finalità, compreso quelli attuati dai produttori stessi.
La denominazione d’origine è, di solito, costituita da un nome geografico di località, città o regione, per uno specifico prodotto di una determinata zona, avente caratteristiche merceo­logiche o qualitative che derivano dall’opera dell’uomo o da fattori naturali, tipici dell’ambi­ente e dei fattori antropici di produzione.
Con l’indicazione di provenienza, invece, si indica un segno distintivo relativo ad un prodot­to ottenuto con metodi di produzione o di tecnica costanti, che non abbia caratteristiche essenzialmente collegate ad una certa zona geografica, quindi viene utilizzato per indicare essenzialmente il luogo di produzione.
Giustamente, una recente pubblicazione dell’Assocamerestero fa notare che non sempre l’indicazione di provenienza può essere intesa e registrata come denominazione d’origine, qualora questa crei “una situazione di ingiustificato privilegio” o comunque sia tale da recare pregiudizio allo sviluppo di altre analoghe iniziative nella stessa regione.
Proprio per i motivi sopra esposti e per le ancora troppo ampie disquisizioni formali e giuridiche generali e particolari sugli accordi bilaterali fra gli Stati (che hanno una legi­slazione in materia assai differente) diventa fondamentale definire e catalogare inter­nazionalmente un nuovo disposto giuridico che codifichi la denominazione da proteggere tale da non essere classificata come un marchio di impresa, o un marchio industriale, o un marchio solo collettivo, o una indicazione solo di provenienza poiché rappresentano solo “parziali” definizioni di supposta tutela dell’origine geografica del prodotto, del vino nel nostro caso.

DOI:

Publication date: March 3, 2022

Issue: Terroir 1998

Type: Article

Authors

GIAMPIETRO COMOLLI

Direttore Consorzio per la Tutela del Franciacorta, Erbusco (Brescia) – ltalia

Tags

IVES Conference Series | Terroir 1998

Citation

Related articles…

Exploring resilience and competitiveness of wine estates in Languedoc-Roussillon in the recent past: a multi-level perspective

The Languedoc-Roussillon wineries are facing a decline in wine yields particularly PGI yields due to many factors. Climate change is just ones, but is expected to increase in the future. There is also structurally a large heterogeneity of yield profiles among terroirs, varieties and strategies. This work investigates the link between yield, competitiveness and resilience to explore how resilient winegrowers have been in the recent past. To this end two approaches have been combined; (i) an accountancy database analysis at estate scale and (ii) municipality level competitiveness analysis. A new resilience indicator that characterizes the capacity of an estate to absorb yield variation is also defined. The FADN database between 2000 and 2018 of ex-Languedoc-Roussillon (France) and other data are used to analyse the current situation and the past evolution of competitiveness and resilience by type of estate (type of farm: PGI and/or PDO & type of commercialization: bulk and/or bottles). The net margin, which defines competitiveness, is not correlated to yield for all types but depends on the type of commercialization and the level of specialisation. The resilience indicator shows that the net margin of estates specialized in PGI is particularly sensitive to yield declines. We also show that price evolutions seem to compensate the effect of yield losses for the majority of types. Municipality scale analysis shows the links between local pedoclimate, yield, commercialization strategies and price. Overlapping a PDO with a PGI does not always increase a municipality’s PGI competitiveness. It is difficult to make links between causes and effects due to the complexity of the wine production system. Production diversification may be a solution. Resorting to the two level of analysis helps resolving the data gap that is necessary to explore the links between yield and economic performance of the wine estates in the long term.

Elevational range shifts of mountain vineyards: Recent dynamics in response to a warming climate

Increasing temperatures worldwide are expected to cause a change in spatial distribution of plant species along elevational gradients and there are already observable shifts to higher elevations as a consequence of climate change for many species. Not only naturally growing plants, but also agricultural cultivations are subject to the effects of climate change, as the type of cultivation and the economic viability depends largely on the prevailing climatic conditions. A shift to higher elevations therefore represents a viable adaptation strategy to climate change, as higher elevations are characterized by lower temperatures. This is especially important in the case of viticulture because a certain wine-style can only be achieved under very specific climatic conditions. Although there are several studies investigating climatic suitability within winegrowing regions or longitudinal shifts of winegrowing areas, little is known about how fast vineyards move to higher elevations, which may represent a viable strategy for winegrowers to maintain growing conditions and thus wine-style, despite the effects of climate change. We therefore investigated the change in the spatial distribution of vineyards along an elevational gradient over the past 20 years in the mountainous wine-growing region of Alto Adige (Italy). A dataset containing information about location and planting year of more than 26000 vineyard parcels and 30 varieties was used to perform this analysis. Preliminary results suggest that there has been a shift to higher elevations for vineyards in general (from formerly 700m to currently 850 m a.s.l., with extreme sites reaching 1200 m a.s.l.), but also that this development has not been uniform across different varieties and products (i.e. vitis vinifera vs hybrid varieties and still vssparkling wines). This is important for climate change adaptation as well as for rural development. Mountain areas, especially at mid to high elevations, are often characterized by severe land abandonment which can be avoided to some degree if economically viable and sustainable land management strategies are available.

Using δ13C and hydroscapes as a tool for discriminating cultivar specific drought response

Measurement of carbon isotope discrimination in berry juice sugars at maturity (δ13C) provides an integrated assessment of water use efficiency (WUE) during the period of berry ripening, and when collected over multiple seasons can be used as an indication of drought stress response. Berry juice δ13C measurements were carried out on 48 different varieties planted in a common garden experiment in Bordeaux, France from 2014 through 2021 and were paired with midday and predawn leaf water potential measurements on the same vines in a subset of six varieties. The aim was to discriminate a large panel of varieties based on their stomatal behaviour and potentially identify hydraulic traits characterizing drought tolerance by comparing δ13C and hydroscapes (the visualisation of plant stomatal behaviour as a response to predawn water potential). Cluster analysis found that δ13C values are likely affected by the differing phenology of each variety, resulting in berry ripening of different varieties taking place under different stress conditions within the same year. We accounted for these phenological differences and found that cluster analysis based on specific δ13C metrics created a classification of varieties that corresponds well to our current empirical understanding of their relative drought tolerances. In addition, we analysed the water potential regulation of the subset of six varieties (using the hydroscape approach) and found that it was well correlated with some δ13C metrics. Surprisingly, a variety’s water potential regulation (specifically its minimum critical leaf water potential under water deficit) was strongly correlated to δ13C values under well-watered conditions, suggesting that base WUE may have a stronger impact on drought tolerance than WUE under water deficit. These results give strong insights on the innate WUE of a very large panel of varieties and suggest that studies of drought tolerance should include traits expressed under non-limiting conditions.

The impact of sustainable management regimes on amino acid profiles in grape juice, grape skin flavonoids, and hydroxycinnamic acids

One of the biggest challenges of agriculture today is maintaining food safety and food quality while providing ecosystem services such as biodiversity conservation, pest and disease control, ensuring water quality and supply, and climate regulation. Organic farming was shown to promote biodiversity and carbon sequestration, and is therefore seen as one possibility of environmentally friendly production. Consumers expect organically grown crops to be free from chemical pesticides and mineral fertilizers and often presume that the quality of organically grown crops is different or higher compared to conventionally grown crops. Integrated, organic, and biodynamic viticulture were compared in a replicated field trial in Geisenheim, Germany (Vitis vinifera L. cv. Riesling). Amino acid profiles in juice, grape skin flavonoids, and hydroxycinnamic acids were monitored over three consecutive seasons beginning 7 years after conversion to organic and biodynamic viticulture, respectively. In addition, parameters such as soil nutrient status, yield, vigor, canopy temperature, and water stress were monitored to draw conclusions on reasons for the observed changes. Results revealed that the different sustainable management regimes highly differed in their amino acid profiles in juice and also in their skin flavonol content, whereas differences in the flavanol and hydroxycinnamic acid content were less pronounced. It is very likely that differences in nutrient status and yield determined amino acid profiles in juice, although all three systems showed similar amounts of mineralized nitrogen in the soil. Canopy structure and temperature in the bunch zone did not differ among treatments and therefore cannot account for the observed differences in favonols. A different light exposure of the bunches in the respective systems due to differences in vigor together with differences in berry size and a different water status of the vines might rather be responsible for the increase in flavonol content under organic and biodynamic viticulture.

Impact of climate change on the viticultural climate of the Protected Designation of Origin “Jumilla” (SE Spain)

Protected Designation of Origin “Jumilla” (PDO Jumilla) is located in the Spanish provinces of Albacete and Murcia, in the South-eastern part of the Iberian Peninsula, where most of the models predict a severe impact of climate change in next decades. PDO Jumilla covers an area of 247,054 hectares, of which more than 22,000 hectares