Winemakers will no longer be allowed to make wines bearing names that refer to regions other than the one in which they themselves are actually located; in order to package their product using the name of a particular region, they will have to invest in bottling facilities in that part of the country.
Wine producers currently exist under a paradox: any winemaker in Iasi or Bucharest, for instance, may buy wine from the Murfatlar region and then bottle it and release it on the market as Murfatlar wine.
According to certain proposed modifications to the Vine And Wine Law, submitted to the Agriculture Ministry by the Association of Employers in the Vine and Wine Industry (PNVV), as of next year, wines of controlled origin might only be allowed to be bottled in the area where the respective grapes are actually produced.
"We want to modify the law before June 30, 2005. Even though such a measure is urgent for several reasons, it is not a priority for the lawmakers at the moment," says Ovidiu Gheorghe, the PNVV's director general. He estimates this will help small producers promote their wines on the market, as is the case in the European Union.
The Vine and Wine Law is very lenient at the moment and allows buying grapes and wines from a specific region under certain circumstances and bottling them elsewhere, which sometimes disadvantages the producers in the region where the wine was bought from.
Murfatlar, Busuioaca de Bohotin, Grasa de Cotnari and Galbena de Odobesti are wines appreciated on the Romanian market, and there are a great many producers in this industry operating outside the regions suggested by these wines' names, while producing wines bearing such regions on their labels. For instance, Carom Bucharest or Vinia Iasi buy grapes or bulk wine (or even own land) in other winemaking regions and then bottle it "at home."
The representatives of the two companies could not be reached for comment.
"These modifications are exactly what we want and do nothing but instate a stricter control over the production of wines and grapes with controlled origin names," says Cosmin Popescu, Murfatlar Romania executive manager.
The PNVV's Ovidiu Gheorghe says there are producers in the EU that own as little as ten ha of land and have a several hundred-year history, managing to sell their production a few years in advance.
Petre Mocanu, executive director of the Vine and Wine Industry Interprofessional Organisation (ONIV) believes the change in legislation could consolidate the market position of small and medium-sized producers, though he admitted that some companies would also suffer as a result.
stelian.negrea@zf.ro
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