After months of preparation, last June Italy and Australia They have finally started negotiations to reach a free trade agreement.
An agreement that will also involve the wine sector and where the controversy over the use of the name Prosecco, which has been ongoing for years, could play a key role in the negotiations.
Prosecco made in Australia
Since the end of the 1990s, in times that were still unsuspected, in Australia they began to produce a sparkling wine from Prosecco grapes – then you still call them that – defined with the same name as the grapes used, i.e. Prosecco.
In fact, the people who started production were emigrants of Italian origin, coming from those hills of Conegliano Valdobbiadene which today are one of the strongholds of Italian sparkling wine.
The production of Prosecco has grown over time, so much so that today in King Valley ,in the state of Victoria, there is a road dedicated to it, the so-called “Prosecco Road".
To make matters worse, there is theItalian sounding of the producers, who have Venetian surnames, very similar to those that can be found in Veneto and Friuli, the two regions where the production of sparkling wine is permitted.
Dal Zotto, a pioneer of Australian Prosecco, is a clear example of this.
Eight From Zotto, originally from Valdobbiadene and owner of the Dal Zotto Wines company, was among the first to plant Glera vines – then known as Prosecco – in 1999 in the King Valley.
Today, Australia boasts several hundred hectares of Glera vineyards, with a production of 20 million bottles and a value of approximately 40 million euros, a figure that is growing rapidly.
prosecco: “one, none, one hundred thousand”.
The boom that has seen it as the protagonist in recent years has made Prosecco not only the most popular sparkling wine, capable of taking ground from the more renowned and intimidating – whether due to its cost or reputation – Champagne, but has also made it a highly desirable product for imitations of any kind.
Prosekt and Prisecco, Kressecco and Asda's Progrigio, are just some of the examples with which the Prosecco System has been fighting for years - the entity that groups together the three Italian Prosecco consortia, namely the Consorzio del Conegliano Valdobbiadene and the Consorzio di Asolo, which protect their respective DOCs and the largest Prosecco Doc Consortium.
According to the Central Inspectorate for the Repression of Fraud of the Ministry of Agricultural Policies, Prosecco is in fact the most counterfeited Italian product.
In 2016 alone, there were 400 reports of irregularities intercepted in Germany, the United Kingdom, Poland, the Netherlands, Austria, Ireland, Switzerland, Croatia, Denmark, Romania and Spain, concerning the sale of “fake Prosecco on tap”, “fake Prosecco in a can” e “fake Prosecco rosé”.
#proseccoontap
Bulk selling, a practice that remains illegal where there is a designation of origin, as in this case that of Prosecco, represents a major problem, and is in fact widely adopted abroad, even in civilised London.
Prosecco “on tap”, as the bulk wine on tap is called, can be found promoted at ridiculously low prices that cast serious doubt on the nature of the carbonated white wine sold as Prosecco, with a loss of image and profit that can only damage the Italian denomination.
The on tap mode has become so popular in London that it has become a real hashtag on Twitter #proseccoontap– then converted by some into #fizzontap – against which the BBC also expressed its opinion in 2015, with an article entitled “Why prosecco on tap is not real prosecco".
However, there are now an increasing number of cases in London of minivans serving supposedly draft prosecco.
The Italy-Australia dispute
Italy had already asked the European Union to intervene in the case of Prosecco produced in Australia in 2013 and Europe, in response, had forwarded the request to the Australian government.
A request that had fallen on deaf ears, resulting in nothing being done.
The quibble that has not yet led to a resolution of the case is to be found in the fact that until 2009 the grapes used to produce Prosecco wine were themselves called Prosecco and were not as decided and regulated in that year.
Which, Australian winemakers argue, exempts them from having to change the name of their Prosecco, which would not refer to a certified wine produced in a specific region, but rather to the grape that is its basis.
"Ross Brown from Brown Brothers Winery –reports Wine Meridian – argues that preventing the use of the name “Prosecco” would be like preventing the use of Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay and that the situation is not comparable to that of Champagne because Prosecco has never historically indicated a geographical area until 2009".
"Australian producers grow and sell the variety under its correct name, which is Prosecco.He explains Tony Battaglene, which represents the Federation of Australian Producers and supports Australian producers in using the Prosecco name.
"The term Glera, on the other hand, was only introduced in 2009 when the European Union changed the rules there to control and restrict the use of the name Prosecco in Europe.
While Italian producers acknowledge that Prosecco is registered in the Australian national list of varieties, they remain firm in their position, arguing that Australian producers should not be able to call their wines Prosecco.“– reports a recent Forbes study on the subject ( read article ).
The price of Prosecco
A significant dispute, given that according to the Federation of Australian Producers, Australian Prosecco is grew by more than 50 percentage points in 2017, generating a value of 60 million Australian dollars, approximately 40 million euros at the current exchange rate.
A figure that amounts to 1.5% of the total value of Australian wine which is around 40 billion Australian dollars.
A percentage that is certainly not high, that of 1.5%, but which, given the global success of Prosecco, could grow exponentially and for which a name change would constitute a serious problem.
This consideration supports Australian winemakers in not wanting to abandon the name Prosecco and to continue the legal battle against the equally aggressive producers from Veneto and Friuli.
However, there are those who argue that Australian Prosecco could be not so much a competitor as an ally for the Italian denomination.
For example, Nick Darlington Red Squirrel Wine claims – in the words of Fabio Piccoli on Wine Meridian – that “In the King Valley area, there are only a few wineries, small in size and often family-run (of Italian origin).
The Italian roots are strong and not only connect Prosecco to a cuisine suited to this wine but also connect the different wineries to each other, in a common effort to promote the area. This means that the growth potential is enormous, also because the Prosecco produced in Australia is cheap but certainly not of poor quality.
Finally, the King Valley it could become a positive example for many Italian wineries. Even the French have seen the success of Argentine Malbec more as a stimulus than as an outrage".
A case that is certainly destined to undergo a turning point with the new treaty, for which Italy is hinting that it wants to use Prosecco as a key pawn in the negotiations.