WINE NEWS
LOSING THE PROSECCO NAME WOULD BE ‘CATASTROPHIC’ The Australian Government is currently conducting free trade negotiations with the European Union (EU) and arguments are being had over whether Prosecco is a geographical indicator (GI), like Champagne, or a grape variety. The EU maintains Prosecco is a GI and as such has banned the importation of any wine labelled as Prosecco into the EU and also into countries with which the EU has free trade agreements. In addition the EU’s position is that Australian wine producers stop using the name Prosecco on any of their wines as a condition of a trade agreement. They are that the grape variety is Glera, although this term was only introduced by the European Commission in 2010. Australian wine producers and the Australian Government are arguing that the name Prosecco refers to a grape variety rather than a GI and so they should be allowed to keep using the name. The Dal Zotto family brought grape vines called Prosecco into Australia in 1997 and since the early 2000s Prosecco has been produced in commercial quantities in Australia. Michael Dal Zotto told National Liquor News, that it is crucial that the Australian Government holds firm in these negotiations. “It’s really, really important that we are able to keep using the Prosecco name. It’s critical,” Dal Zotto said. “For one we don’t want to set an unhealthy precedent around succumbing
to pressure and saying, ‘OK it’s not Prosecco any more it’s Glera. It’s been known as Prosecco since the beginning of time, so why all of a sudden should that change and why should we allow it to be changed? “Secondly it would be detrimental to a number of Australian businesses, when you look at the growth that the variety has seen of late. Ross Brown of the Brown Family Wine Group is also producing Prosecco out of the King Valley and he agrees that there is no basis to the Italian argument of using the term Glera. “Prosecco is a grape variety and that is really where our argument starts and finishes. The whole Italian argument of changing the name to Glera is a fraud,” Brown told National Liquor News. “It’s critical that we keep the Prosecco name, it’s just like telling someone they can’t use Cabernet or Shiraz. It’s the handle that people refer to the grape variety as, it’s also the wine name and if Australia even contemplated giving that away on such a fragile basis you’d have to say there is no European name that’s got any integrity in terms of commercial usage. Dal Zotto added: “So far the trade ministers and negotiators have all held firm and we really hope that they continue to do so.” With Prosecco enjoying incredible growth in Australia right now, it’s crucial that this term is kept and that the growth is maintained in this increasingly important category.
AVL INVESTS $11M IN NEW BOTTLING LINE Australian Vintage Limited (AVL) has invested $11 million in a new technologically advanced bottling facility at its Merbein site in Victoria. The team scoured the globe for two years to source the most state of the art machinery, and CEO Neil McGuigan says that the opening of the site is a landmark moment for AVL. The facility has the capability to package still and sparkling wine at rates of 11,000 and 7,000 bottles per hour respectively, and is one of the fastest bottling lines in Australia. The line features visual control technology to check label positioning, it can detect bottle seams for precision labelling, and its carbonator is able to provide different levels of mouthfeel and palate texture in sparkling wines, which McGuigan says will allow them to “create new and exciting products for our domestic and global market”. For the first time, AVL will be able to bottle both sparkling and still wine at the one site for its three key brands, McGuigan, Tempus Two and Nepenthe. And the investment will accelerate AVL’s innovation pipeline, enabling it to bring new wines to market more quickly. “We now have the best technology available in the world to capture the quality of our wine in the bottle. In our company we live by two statements, ‘make the wine the hero’, and ‘over-deliver on quality at every price point’. We are continuing to lift the bar on the quality of Australian wine and now we have a bottling line that mirrors this,” says McGuigan. The investment is part of a $19 million capital injection into the
L-R: Peter Walsh, the Shadow Minister of Agriculture Victoria, Richard Davis, AVL Chairman, Neil McGuigan
company’s operations, including the installation of solar plants at Buronga Hill and extensive new vineyard plantings of more than 180 hectares, to meet the growing demand for its brands. “The opening of our new Merbein packaging facility is a landmark moment for Australian Vintage and represents a step-change in our capabilities as Australia’s fifth largest wine company.”
NATIONAL LIQUOR NEWS MARCH 2019 | 17
