The Italian wine supply chain: de-alcoholized wine and new categories in the CAP but not PDO and PGI

The wine sector - Alleanza delle Cooperative italiane, Assoenologi, Cia, Confagricoltura, Copagri, Federdoc, Federvini and Unione Italiana Vini – has written to Stefano Patuanelli, the Minister of Agricultural Policies, to request that the Italian wine world’s position on de-alcoholized wines be defended during the round of the trilogue negotiations, which began recently, regarding the Common Agricultural Policy reform. The wine organizations basically believe that this is important to implement all possible actions to guarantee that future European regulation will be in line with the expectations of the wine sector. The wine supply chain has requested, therefore, that these products, while within the framework od the CMO Regulation, be classified as new categories, and not in terms of accompanying existing categories, which the European Parliament had already indicated.
The goal is to indicate a clearer distinction between new categories and other wine products, which would also allow that the National Support Plan funds would be more easily directed towards non-alcohol-free products. It is also necessary to clarify the passage of the text under discussion, as well as the part relative to the return of water lost during the de-alcoholization process. In this case, it is necessary to specifically confirm in the Regulation 1308/2013, and not in the delegated act, that any replenishment of water during de-alcoholation operations only concerns the endogenous one; that is, water lost during this procedure.
The wine industry then expressed its firm opposition on the possibility of using the categories of “dealcoholized” and “partially dealcoholized” wines for wines with a protected designation of origin and a protected geographical indication. The resulting product does not meet the requirements that PDO or PGI wines currently require, risking penalizing the latter in the consumer's perception. Finally, the wine supply chain believes that, while agreeing with the proposal of the European institutions to harmonize the definitions of low- grade alcohol products within the CAP reform context, and the need to keep these categories within the CMO Regulation, totally dealcoholized products should have contemplated using the term “drink” in place of wine.