Stop to the EU-Australia free trade agreement. And Australians will continue to make “Prosecco”

Not even time to rejoice over the agreement found in the European Union on the new regulation on PDO and PGI that will avoid new “Prosek” cases, that bad news arrives from Australia, for the Prosecco world. In the broader picture that has seen an abrupt stop on the free trade agreement between the European Union and Australia, as reported by, among others, the Reuters news agency, arrived at in talks in recent days in Osaka, Japan, which also covered meat, cheese and more, the protection of the name Prosecco in Australia has jumped, at least for now. For the Australians, in fact, Prosecco is “only” the name of a grape variety, and, therefore, a varietal that can be put on the label, like all the others. A long-standing battle, the one over Prosecco (the recognition of PDO and PGI outside the EU, let us remember, is not automatic, but international agreements are needed for it to be effective, ed.), which, in Australia, has also taken the form of a campaign called #SaveAussieProsecco. And now, therefore, at least until discussions resume and in the hope of a new agreement, Australians will continue to produce their Prosecco, and, to market it as such, where the name “Italian” is not protected by other agreements on specific markets. Obviously, the overall agreement did not jump because of Prosecco, which, if anything, can be considered a collateral casualty of the halt in negotiations, due, according to media reports, to further demands from Australia for access to the EU market, especially, but not only, on meat, as Euronews reports with demands deemed inadmissible on the European side.
“As far as we are concerned”, comments the president of the Consorzio del Prosecco Doc, Stefano Zanette, “I find incomprehensible the attitude of Australian producers who persist in opposing the recognition of our Ig, despite the fact that most importing countries have already protected our denomination, not least New Zealand and China, two of the most important markets for Australian wine”.
But, in the meantime, while Italy is trying to figure out how it can make a move, Australians are rejoicing, as reported by the magazine of the Land of Kangaroos, “Drinks Trade”, which reports, in particular, the comment of Katherine Brown, a producer with the Brown Brothers winery, and a leading figure in the #SaveAussieProsecco campaign, according to which the turnover of “Prosecco” made in Australia is worth more than $205 million. “The effort to preserve the Prosecco name has brought together producers from across Australia, demonstrating the collaborative spirit of our wine industry. It has great meaning for producers, and by persisting in our mission to safeguard the use of the Prosecco name in Australia, future generations of winemakers will have the freedom to work with various grape varieties and continue to innovate”. In short, what seemed like it should have been the final round of negotiations to improve EU-Australia trade, which is already worth more than 50 billion euros a year, has become a boomerang, for Prosecco and beyond. “I regret that we were not able to successfully conclude our negotiations. To move forward, we need more realistic expectations and a balanced approach that fully respects the viability of our farmers and the sustainability of our food system”, EU Agriculture Commissioner Janus Wojciechowski said via social. But things will evidently be more complicated and time-consuming than expected.