WashPost: Squabble in Croatia over Prosecco Name...

Interesting article in today's WashPost of the squabbling in Croatia over the Prosecco name:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/11/09/prosecco-name-fight-croatia-italy/

They are wanting to use the name Prosek for a sherry-like dessert wine (which I've never had) that they make.
The producers of Prosecco in the Veneto are, of course, objecting because it'll confuse the poor consumers
because the names are so similar.
This amuses me because the producers of Prosecco in the Valdobbiadene/Veneto stole the name & got it protected in 2009.
Before that, there was a small village in the Carso near Trieste named Prosecco, where they made a sparkling wine from the Glera grape.
The producers in the Veneto changed the name of the Glera grape to Prosecco & had it protected by the EU for wines from their area.
Friggin' thieves. Of course, producers near the village cannot call the sparkling wine they make from the Glera grape after their village, Prosecco, anymore.
Friggin' thieves.
Tom

Wine Enthusiast has this to say:
https://www.winemag.com/2021/11/08/pros ... k-croatia/
Tom

Do try Prošek if ever you get a chance. It is a seriously high-quality wine. The examples I have had were excellent. Unfortunately I cannot find my TNs, but from memory the closest comparison would be an extremely intense and complex dry Sherry.

Boycott Prosecco, and buy Prošek instead.

And I might spell the sparkling wine Prošekko from now on. No one would notice the difference would they?

The producers in the Veneto changed the name of the Glera grape to Prosecco & had it protected by the EU for wines from their area.

I thought they changed the name of the grape to Glera from Prosecco and claimed Prosecco as a appellation name.

This stopped others who had also planted the Prosecco grape from calling their wines varietally. I tasted a number of Proseccos grown and made in Australia.

Are there any grape variety names that are protected in the EU? I thought only geographical names were.

(which might inspire Burgndians to change the name of the Chardonnay grape and claim the village of Chardonnay in Burgundy as a protected geographic name. Think of the endless hours of amusement that would cause

The producers in the Veneto changed the name of the Glera grape to Prosecco & had it protected by the EU for wines from their area.

I thought they changed the name of the grape to Glera from Prosecco and claimed Prosecco as a appellation name.

This stopped others who had also planted the Prosecco grape from calling their wines varietally. I tasted a number of Proseccos grown and made in Australia.

Are there any grape variety names that are protected in the EU? I thought only geographical names were.

(which might inspire Burgndians to change the name of the Chardonnay grape and claim the village of Chardonnay in Burgundy as a protected geographic name. Think of the endless hours of amusement that would cause

Well, Peter... I may have got my story backwards. But the folks in the village of Prosecco neat Trieste can no longer make a traditional sparkling wine & call it Prosecco.
The Slovenians have tried to get a ruling that Terano can only be grown in the Slovene Carso. The Italians are fighting that one as they could no longer make. Terrano in their part of the Carso or In Friuli.
Tom

I thought they changed the name of the grape to Glera from Prosecco and claimed Prosecco as a appellation name.

The variety used to have at least two names: Glera and Prosecco. Now Prosecco is not allowed to be used; Glera is still OK

This stopped others who had also planted the Prosecco grape from calling their wines varietally.

They can still use varietal naming, but cannot use the Prosecco name for the variety

Are there any grape variety names that are protected in the EU? I thought only geographical names were.

Prosecco is now a protected geographical name. As such it is not allowed to be used as a variety name, not even by producers in the Prosecco region. It is not a protected variety name.

In that sense it is like Tokay, which used to be a variety name in Alsace, but the name can be no longer used as such, because it became a protected geographical name when Hungary joined the EU.

The big difference of course is that Tokaj has long been used as the geographical name for a wine region - it was in fact the first officially delimited wine region in the world. On the other hand, Prosecco is a Johny-come-lately with its name-grabbing raid.

(That is all from memory. I haven't fact-checked just before posting, but I believe it to be correct.)