During the VINEXPO 2015 “Le salon international du vin et des spiritueux”, biennial international event, a sparkling white Brazilian wine was noticed for having the word "Prosecco" on its label. This production had previously been mentioned during an international wine competition held in France.
The legal department of the Prosecco Doc Consortium immediately sent the request to the organizers of the fair to remove the product and, at the same time, ICE that was present at the show and the Italian Ministry of Economic Development were alerted. They acted promptly, in agreement with the French authorities took action to withdraw the product on display and, in defense of the “Prosecco” denomination, to delete any reference included in the website.
After the case that happened in the UK of the "Prosecco" on tap, thwarted by the intervention of the Italian Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, this is the second striking example, within a few months, of misuse of the Prosecco denomination inside the European Community.
The Deputy Minister for Economic Development Carlo Calenda (photograph), said in this regard that: “The Government is strongly committed to fighting the Italian Sounding worldwide, especially in the Americas. With Canada we have solved the longstanding problem of misuse of the PDOs denominations thanks to the CETA agreement. Now both with the TTIP and with the actions of promotion and combating the phenomenon on US territory (funded through the Extraordinary Plan for Made in Italy) we are trying to solve it in the US. In Central America we have solved the problem with the bilateral agreements reached in 2013: with South America and Brazil the MERCOSUR negotiations will need to advance as they have been still for much too long”.
