• Entrepreneurs
• Business information
• Certification
• CAFIA laboratories
• CAFIA opinions
• More information
• Consumers
• How to know the food market
• Results of CAFIA inspections
• Consumer rights
• List of risky sites
• Hoaxes
• Other visitors
• Press Releases
• Internships at CAFIA
• Public contracts

The Czech Agriculture and Food Inspection Authority (CAFIA) draws attention of consumers and operators to offers of semi sparkling wine (also frizzante), either intentionally or unintentionally misusing the protected name "Prosecco" by some operators (restaurants, bars, kiosks, wine shops, wine bars, etc.).

Wine labelled with the "Prosecco" name must comply with several conditions, in particular:

• Grapes for production (mainly of the Glera grape variety) must come from the following Italian provinces: Belluno, Gorizia, Padua, Pordenone, Treviso, Trieste, Venezia (Venice) and Vicenza.
• Production and subsequent bottling of wine must also take place in one of these provinces (with partial exceptions provided for in the relevant specification).
• Wine must be bottled in traditional glass bottles. Direct sale of “Prosecco” packaged in glass demijohns no bigger than 60 litres to final consumers is the only exception to this rule.
• Similar conditions apply to the higher category of product, sparkling wine (also spumante, with container pressure of 3 bars at least).

The name “Prosecco” is registered as a “Protected Designation of Origin” (PDO) within the European Union. PDOs are designations for exceptional agricultural products or foodstuffs origination from a particular region or place, quality or characteristics of which are due to a specific geographical environment. The PDO “Prosecco” is protected by legislation against misuse by comparable products that fail to meet the specification of the PDO “Prosecco” as well as against any imitations (e.g. the French PDO "Champagne" is protected the same way).

Semi sparkling wine or sparkling wine with the PDO “Prosecco” may only be sold to consumers in a glass bottle (bottled) or served as a drink from a glass bottle. If, for example, a consumer in a restaurant wishes to consume entire bottle on the spot, the bottle must be opened only in front of the consumer and nowhere else at the premises.

Any operator offering wine under the protected name “Prosecco” (or any other similar name resembling the term “Prosecco”), which in fact originates from other than the above-mentioned areas or even from another country or is bottled/tapped/dispensed from containers other than glass bottles (e.g. kegs), would be committing misuse of the Prosecco PDO. Such offence is regarded as adulteration of the product in question in the light of Act No. 321/2004 Coll., on viticulture and viniculture for which operators are liable to penalties.

Article by: Pavel Kopřiva, CAFIA Spokesperson, phone: +420 542 426 633 

29^th June 2023