In 2022, France tightened wine labelling rules for restaurants and bars to protects consumers over misleading labels and packaging. Now, restaurant and bar owners in France face fines unless the origin of wine is listed — and Portuguese wine regions want their government to do the same. Amidst the cost-of-living crisis, many Portuguese restaurants have turned, sometimes unwittingly, to selling Spanish house wines by the glass or in jugs to consumers who may presume they are drinking Portuguese. Five-litre bag-in-box wines in Portuguese supermarkets with an average price of €5.99, are often packaged with Portuguese emblems. Closer examination reveals small lettering stating “Producto da UE” (EU product) – indicating that the wine originated in Spain.
Illegal blending?
Selling Spanish bulk as ‘EU wine’ is legal. The EU single market as well as modern production techniques and machinery, often funded by the EU, have allowed bulk wine operators to be competitive in terms of quality and price. However, Andovi - the Associação Nacional das Denominações de Origem Vitivinícolas, the PDO/PGI wine regions - suspects big Portuguese wine companies are illegally blending Spanish wine with Portuguese appellation wines, adding to the local producers’ problems.
In April, Francisco Toscano Rico, Chairman of Andovi, told the Portuguese online news site Econews.pt: “If it is true that we are in the [European] single market — and we do not dispute that… how is this [Spanish] wine being placed on the market? To what extent is it marketed as imported wine or is it being blended and sold as Portuguese wine? It is essential to check this. We need more and better control and there are mechanisms to do this.”
Calls for import controls
On May 14, Andovi representatives met with Portugal's Secretary of State for Agriculture to advocate for new reforms aimed at ensuring transparency in wine origins and greater control over production.
The meeting was held less than a week after the Douro wine board, IVDP, put out a statement on May 17th to remind producers that the use of bulk wines is strictly prohibited in PDO wine production. It also suggested it would start to control movements of bulk in the PDO region of the Douro and exert more control over regulatory exemptions to the circulation of bulk wine in the region.
The reforms could also result in changes to PGI regional wine legislation, which currently permits 15% of PGI wines to be made from wines from other regions. Portuguese producer Joao Portugal Ramos has suggested that using grapes from other Portuguese regions should be allowed only in exceptional circumstances.
Several producers have urged regional wine boards to exert further controls and testing on PDO and PGI wines before they are granted permission to use the appellation stamps on packaging (something which generates cash for wine boards), to ensure wine has not been blended. Testing for evidence may prove difficult.
Tempranillo, known as Aragones or Tinto Roriz in Portuguese, is grown in Portugal and Spain in a similar climate. But there are ways in which to prove where wine was produced.
To read the full article, click HERE.