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The vinegrowing and wine - Producing World
GIANFRANCO TEMPESTA
MONICA FIORILO
THE VINEGROWING AND WINE-PRODUCING WORLD
3. PARADIGMS AND MODELS OF THE WINE MARKET
France is recognised as being the first country to regulate the wine market. Starting from the beginning of the 1900s, after several social struggles, lawsuits, popular uprisings, subsequent agreements between landowners and vinegrowers, many parliamentary discussions, vicissitudes and the end of the war, the law was finally passed on 6th May 1919: it attempted to respond to the difficulties of the vinegrowing supply chain that was undermined by overproduction and fraud. For the legislator, it was about responding to the crisis that had broken out in the Languedoc and Champagne, the two most important regions in terms of production, when compared to the modest Burgundy.
Thus the term “Appellation d’Origine” (designation of origin) was coined and then “Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée” (controlled designation of origin) in 1935; this legislative approach has been the basis of European regulations and member States of OIV (Organisation International de la Vigne et du Vin) since 1970, adapting rules, laws and economic models to the needs of each member state (Fig. 1.1: Paradigms and Models).
It is an effort to codify wines, with the aim of guaranteeing their authenticity, protecting their quality and avoiding fraud. This is how the different types of wines full of typicity are characterised, definable by the trio “local, loyal and constant” valid for every terroir, and condensing everything into a collective brand revolving around the place name, which is an intellectual property right.
One of the distinctive points in the application of AOCs (Italian DOCs) is the gap between the initial market rules that led to their creation (this can be affirmed on the basis of historical reconstructions) and those that currently govern the law and the wine trade. In fact, the legal framework of the wine market did not consist in a simple clarification (through the law) of the practices adopted in the area to be protected, as the formula of “local, loyal and constant traditions” of the 1919 and 1935 laws implied. In fact there was an evolution in their application and, therefore, the practice of equivalences was strongly limited, blending with other wines was forbidden and many new designations appearedi.
Therefore quality wines are a rich legacy, the fruit of man’s experience through the centuries. The designations of origin, that are protected by these laws, are a cultural heritage and at the same time a collective brand owned by a group of producers, which does not preclude experimentation but does not accept ex novo creations and non-traditional commercial wines.
It is about the economic players’ common ownership, based on a law that acknowledges that the collective brand is owned by the wine unions, as the legal representatives of the producers and the managers of a public brand. In Italy ownership belongs to the state
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