Hands off the grappa! New Zealanders will have to call their spirits something else (and buy the Italian one)

Starting from the first of May, the new Free Trade Agreement will come into force, in which even in New Zealand, the designation of products such as Italian Brandy and Geographical Indication Grappa will be reserved for Italian productions only. A result also achieved thanks to the collaboration of AssoDistil with the Institutions.

The new agreement

"We are particularly proud of this result," said Cesare Mazzetti, president of the Aquaviti and Liquors Committee of AssoDistil, "as our intervention has prevented the name Grappa from being used without temporal deadlines for a spirit produced in New Zealand, as initially envisaged by the draft agreement."

On March 25th, the free trade agreement between the EU and New Zealand was ratified and according to the Free Trade Agreement, "the full protection of spirits with geographical indications including Italian Brandy, Grappa and territorial Grappas with GI is included, the names of which will now be reserved for tricolor spirits," reads the AssoDistil statement.

A promising market

In particular, for Grappa, a 5-year phasing out is planned, i.e., a gradual adaptation that allows "a temporally limited use of the designation for those who have made a proven continuous use on the New Zealand market - and provided that they clearly indicate the true geographical origin of the product on the label - at the expiry of which all use must cease definitively." A measure that turns New Zealand into a promising market for Grappa and Italian Brandy, which can now pivot on the exclusive use of the designation.