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Winemakers mark 50 years of quality approval

Italian winemakers on Friday celebrated 50 years since the Controlled designation of origin (DOC) stamp was introduced, which gave quality wines the seal of approval.

Winemakers mark 50 years of quality approval
The first wine given DOC status was Vernaccia di San Gimignano. Photo: Dinner Series/Flickr

The government introduced the measure in 1963, although the ministry of agriculture said it was more than 40 years in the making.

Arturo Marescalchi, the founder of the Italian Winemakers Association (Assoenologi), first presented the idea of creating a way of recognising “traditional wines” to the government in 1921.

The idea became law in 1930, the ministry said, but was stalled for nearly three more decades.

Lawmakers grappled with terminology and eventually – thanks to the Treaty of Rome which set up the European Economic Community in 1957 – settled on “Controlled designation of origin” (Denominazione di origine controllata, DOC).

The DOC law was enacted six years later, with Vernaccia di San Gimignano gaining the first seal of approval in 1966.

The wine consortium of San Gimignano, a hilltop town in Tuscany, describes the variety as “a straw yellow wine with golden reflections that are accentuated with ageing”.

The DOC authorities have had a busy half a century and have now approved 403 different varieties.  

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FARMING

Cold snap ‘could slash French wine harvest by 30 percent’

A rare cold snap that froze vineyards across much of France this month could see harvest yields drop by around a third this year, France's national agriculture observatory said on Thursday.

Cold snap 'could slash French wine harvest by 30 percent'
A winemaker checks whether there is life in the buds of his vineyard in Le Landreau, near Nantes in western France, on April 12th, following several nights of frost. Photo: Sebastien SALOM-GOMIS / AFP

Winemakers were forced to light fires and candles among their vines as nighttime temperatures plunged after weeks of unseasonably warm weather that had spurred early budding.

Scores of vulnerable fruit and vegetable orchards were also hit in what Agriculture Minister Julien Denormandie called “probably the greatest agricultural catastrophe of the beginning of the 21st century.”

IN PICTURES: French vineyards ablaze in bid to ward off frosts

The government has promised more than €1 billion in aid for destroyed grapes and other crops.

Based on reported losses so far, the damage could result in up to 15 million fewer hectolitres of wine, a drop of 28 to 30 percent from the average yields over the past five years, the FranceAgriMer agency said.

That would represent €1.5 to €2 billion of lost revenue for the sector, Ygor Gibelind, head of the agency’s wine division, said by videoconference.

It would also roughly coincide with the tally from France’s FNSEA agriculture union.

Prime Minister Jean Castex vowed during a visit to damaged fields in southern France last Saturday that the emergency aid would be made available in the coming days to help farmers cope with the “exceptional situation.”

READ ALSO: ‘We’ve lost at least 70,000 bottles’ – French winemakers count the cost of late frosts

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