You can’t call it champagne if it ain’t from the Champagne region. Prosecco, on the other hand, has been a sore point for Italian winemakers, who’ve fought for years to get the same protection for the sparkling wine produced in the country’s northeastern Prosecco region.
Australia is off the hook – for now. Our right to make and sell prosecco is safe under a new free trade pact signed today by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who’s in the country for a whirlwind trip.
The deal, which has been almost a decade in the making, is significant because it makes Australia the first country outside Italy to secure the right to use the name in reference to locally made sparkling white wine made with glera grapes.
Glera grapes, previously known as prosecco grapes, were renamed in 2009 by the Italian government and the European Union in order to achieve geographical indication à la champagne – even though the grape had been called prosecco for centuries.
Winemaker Michael Dal Zotto, whose father planted Australia’s first prosecco grape vines in Victoria’s King Valley in 1999, says the new agreement is a good result for the industry.
“It’s been 20 years of investment in time getting the public to know what Australian prosecco is,” he tells Broadsheet. “The re-education piece would have been significant. It would’ve cost the industry and individual growers a lot of money, because we’d be out there again trying to introduce something new.”
While Dal Zotto says Australian producers’ right to use the name within Australia is “ongoing”, there’s still a catch: we only get to export products under the name prosecco for the next 10 years. After that, the deal fizzles out, and we’ll have to call it something else. Could that change? “I doubt it,” says Dal Zotto. “The Italians have fought pretty hard to get to this point.”
The prosecco bit is part of a suite of new changes to Australia and Europe’s trade partnership. For one, we’ll also retain the right to use “parmesan” and “kransky” for Australian-made products as part of the deal.
But more broadly, duty on almost all Australian goods sold in Europe will be axed. For example, Australian wine producers and exporters are expected to benefit to the tune of around $37 million annually.
Going the other way, Australia will drop tariffs on imported European products such wine, spirits, biscuits, chocolates and pasta, making them cheaper for Aussie consumers.
Dining and Cooking