A ustralian wine producers have drawn the attention – and wrath – of the Italians by planting Mediterranean grape varieties in an effort to counter climate change.
In late July, Italy’s Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies announced that it had “initiated proceedings” against up to 20 UK websites because they were promoting and selling Australian wines that have the name Nero d’Avola on the label. Only Sicilian producers can use the name of the grape on their wines, according to the ministry’s Central Inspectorate for Quality Controls and Antifraud of Foodstuff and Agricultural Products (ICQRF).
In particular, the ICQRF claims that European consumers perceive the grape as being “linked to Sicilian territory” and the Australians are misleading consumers by “the repeated use of the words ‘Sicily’ and ‘Sicilian’ that are often used to describe and promote Australian wines on these websites”.
Small dispute, big implications
This dispute over Nero comes at a time when Australia and the European Union are in talks to renegotiate their free trade agreement. “They [the Italians] are trying to put pressure on, not just on Australia, but they also need to pressure their own European Commission, who are doing the negotiations, so they can emphasise how important it is to Italy to have a win on this,” says Tony Battaglene, chief executive of the Winemakers’ Federation of Australia. He worries that the separate Australia-EU Wine Trade Agreement will also be incorporated into the trade talks. “There’s no doubt that they will be trying to threaten, coerce and put pressure on our government to give up our right to use a number of grape varieties.”
For their part, the Italians are adamant that Australia is violating EU law by selling bottles marked as Nero d’Avola. “Nero d’Avola is protected by EU and Italian law,” says Antonio Rallo, owner of Donnafugata winery and president of the Consorzio di Tutela Vini Doc Sicilia. “You can only have Nero d’Avola in Europe. It’s like Prosecco. Avola is an IGT [Indicazione geografica tipica]. Nero d’Avola is protected by this appellation.”
This is not a trivial war of words. After Italian Pinot Grigio became a huge, international success in the late 20th century, the Italians watched with dismay as consumers moved to buy Pinot Grigio based on the varietal name, not on the origin. The Italians found their wines competing with Pinot Grigio from California, Hungary and Romania, among other places. In 2009, as sales of Prosecco began to soar, the Italians moved swiftly to prevent the same thing happening by changing the name of the grape from Prosecco to Glera. The region in which Prosecco originated was then enlarged to include the village of Prosecco in Friuli, allowing Prosecco to be registered as a protected denomination of origin (DOC).
But the Australians refused to give up the name Prosecco. Italian migrant Otto Dal Zotto had first planted Prosecco in the King Valley, in the state of Victoria, in 1999 – because the grape cuttings he imported were called Prosecco at the time. Today the grape has created a bonanza for King Valley wineries; there is even a Prosecco Road, and the overall industry is worth A$66m ($48m). “It’s a bit like the French deciding to stop everyone using Chardonnay by creating a region called Chardonnay – and then changing the name of the Chardonnay grape to something else,” says Michael Dal Zotto, Otto’s son.
Following a legal challenge by the Europeans in 2013, Australia won the right to use the word Prosecco on wines produced for the domestic market, but lost the right to use the name on wines destined for export. Australia won the argument by its prior use of the Prosecco name some 10 years before it was made a protected geographical indication, or GI.
From the European side, there has been a concerted effort to register a host of food and wine names to prevent regional, traditional products from being copied and to promote traditional and agricultural activity. As part of this, the Avola IGT was registered in 2009.
The Sicilians have good reason to be concerned. Up until the 1980s, Sicilian Nero d’Avola was often used as blending material, to add strength to other reds. When made on its own, it was often an overblown, highly alcoholic wine. That changed with the coming of new techniques, such as night harvesting, which allowed the grape to showcase its savoury, elegant side. In the past two decades, the grape has grown in popularity, helping to put Sicily on the world wine map.
The question is can the Italians really stop anyone from putting Nero d’Avola on the label when it’s a recognised grape?
Nero d’Avola in Australia
Australian winemakers have been looking to a range of Mediterranean indigenous grapes for more than a decade, especially those well-suited to hot, dry conditions, in order to counter the effects of climate change. Other Italian grapes showing promise in Australia include Montepulciano, Nebbiolo and Sangiovese.
A leading Australian nursery, Chalmers, began importing Nero d’Avola in the late 1990s and sold the first vines in 2006. “So far, we’ve sold around 190,000 vines in all winegrowing states, except Tasmania,” says Kim Chalmers, director of Chalmers Viticulture. Chalmers also makes Nero d’Avola wines grown in the Heathcote region of Victoria, and Chalmers says she is careful not to draw comparisons to Italy. “If you look at the Chalmers wine label, it actually says that they are Australian wines that pay respect to their continental heritage. I have avoided using the word Europe or Italy or anything else.”
Mark Lloyd, of Coriole in South Australia’s McLaren Vale region, saw the grape’s potential early on and now makes a few hundred cases. He says London wine bars have been enthusiastic in their support of his wine, adding that he does not make any reference to either Italy or Sicily on his wine labels. “Our story has always been that we’re not trying to copy the Italians,” he says. Indeed, he argues that’s why he labels his wine ‘Nero’. “It was to differentiate it from an Italian geographical association. The town of Avola in Sicily is really not relevant to produce from our country.”
Some Australians also question how relevant the town of Avola is to the Nero d’Avola grape itself. As Australian wine writer and Italian specialist Jane Faulkner says, the Sicilians themselves also recognise that the best Nero d’Avola doesn’t come from the town of Avola. “So if you are on the other side of the island and you’ve got Nero d’Avola, are you able to call it Nero d’Avola?”
Michael Trembath, of the Melbourne importer Trembath & Taylor, has imported Italian wines since 1994. He points out that the synonym for Nero d’Avola is Calabrese. He says if Australia started calling the grape Calabrese, after Calabria, “then you would really have problems”. He says the whole issue is “a storm in a teacup” and that the Italians will have a difficult time proving their case.
For the moment, Sicily’s Rallo says that the UK websites selling Australian Nero d’Avola were asked to take the listings down. “They had to remove any wine not produced in Italy. I think they have already done this – it’s force of law,” he says. “You can’t sell something that shows Nero d’Avola on the label that is not from Sicily.”
At the time of writing, Meininger’s checked 19 UK websites and found three that were still selling Australian wines clearly marked as Nero d’Avola. “We can’t take action because it’s the UK that has to work on that – we can’t send our people to enforce, but it is something that by law must be done by the UK,” says Rallo.
King Valley wine marketer Christian Dal Zotto, whose father Otto introduced the Prosecco grape to Australia, believes the latest European call for a ban on Australian Nero d’Avola in Britain could have serious ramifications, flowing through to other agricultural products in the latest negotiations over the EU-Australia Free Trade Agreement. “I guess it’s open season on everything,” he says.
Additional reporting by Felicity Carter
