Last November, Sandro Boscaini, the president of leading Amarone producer Masi, reportedly claimed that fewer than 10 percent of Italy’s current wine denominations are truly necessary today. His comments added momentum to an ongoing debate over the relevance of geographical indications (GIs) in today’s global wine market. Until recently, this discussion has centered largely on marketability and creative freedom.
Yet, in August last year, top Pomerol estate Château Lafleur announced it would withdraw from both the Pomerol and Bordeaux appellations and instead designate all of its labels as Vin de France. The decision was driven by the producer’s need for greater flexibility when responding to climate change, as heatwaves and erratic weather increasingly challenge existing appellation regulations. Now, climate change is at the center of the debate over the relevance of GIs.
Without the heritage burden of centuries-old local traditions, many New World regions are adapting faster to a changing climate. In Australia, the Limestone Coast Grape and Wine Council (LCGWC)—a consortium of six regional associations—is in the final stages of securing unprecedented funding aimed at helping growers and winemakers build greater climate resilience. A major portion of the investment is expected to go towards improved water management, which, as in Bordeaux, is a critical priority for the region’s future.
“Here in Australia, we adopted GIs to appease EU standardization so we could get our wines into the common market,” says LCGWC executive officer Edward Cavanagh. “But we didn’t do it to replicate the micro-regulatory, guild-like grip on grape varieties and winemaking styles that you see in the Old World … No GI in Australia tries to exert that level of control, nor would it ever be accepted. It would be seriously out of keeping with how we operate here, and there are few growers who would listen to us even if we did.”
In Europe, meaningful regulatory change is considerably harder to achieve. GI regulations are often treated as safeguards of traditions—from locally significant grape varieties to recognizable wine styles—rather than as frameworks that evolve in step with environmental and societal change in order to protect producers and consumers.
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