Verdict of the Supreme Administrative Court of this week confirmed lawfulness of the procedure of the Czech Agriculture and Food Inspection Authority (CAFIA) against Templářské sklepy Čejkovice in 2010. Two years ago, the Inspection Authority ordered to withdraw wines of several varieties from the market due to inappropriate labelling of geographical origin. The producer was not able to demonstrate the origin of grapes from which over 1 million of litres of wine were produced and put into circulation.

The Supreme Administrative Court complied with the appeal on a point of law of CAFIA Inspectorate in Brno and agreed with its interpretation of the respective piece of legislation. The Court pronounced that the point and meaning of the obligation to label wines is based, inter alia, on unmistakable characteristics related to the geographical origin of wine and that information given on the wine labels must not mislead consumers. “Only this way it is possible to keep and protect the heritage of specific characteristics associated with geographical origin of wine”, the Supreme Administrative Court indicated in its judgement with clarification that the previous judgement of the Regional Court in Brno of 6 March 2012 regarding the same matter was based on incorrect conclusions.

In 2010 company Templářské sklepy Čejkovice put into circulation bottles with wine labelled as variety wine or quality variety wine originated from the Czech Republic or more precisely from Moravia. Contrary to the law, the producer was not able to demonstrate the origin of grapes and disprove thus the suspicion that the raw material might originate from a foreign country.