ABSTRACT
Italy and France are historically among the countries that produce the most prestigious wines worldwide. In Europe, these two countries together produce more than half of the wines classified under the Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) label, the strictest quality mark of food and wines in the European Union. Due to their long tradition in wine protection, Italy and France include highly detailed specifications in their wine PDO regulatory documents that are usually not available for other countries, such as specific information about the main cultivars that must be used to make each wine or the required planting density in the vineyards. However, this information is scattered throughout the documents of each wine production area and has never been extracted and homogenised in a unique dataset. Here, we present the first dataset that characterizes the PDO wines produced in Italy and France at very high detail based on the information from the official EU geographical indication register. For each country it includes a standardized list of the PDO wine names, linked with their specific requirements, such as the wine colour, type, cultivars used and maximum allowed yields. The unprecedented level of detail of this dataset allows for the first time the analysis of more than 5000 traditional wines and their legal and agronomic specifications. This gives insights into the interplay between the European Union quality regulation policy, the wine sector, and agronomic practices, enabling researchers and practitioners to analyze wine production in the context of specific regulations or economic scenarios.
ABSTRACT
The Wine Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) label is a European quality scheme that protects high quality wines by linking them to legally defined geographic areas and a set of specific production practices. Because of the tight relation between PDO wines and the specifications defined in the official regulatory documents, these products are highly susceptible to changes in climatic, environmental, or socioeconomic conditions. However, the content of these regulatory documents has never been systematically analysed and summarized in a single dataset. Here, we present the first geospatial inventory that organizes regulatory information about the 1177 wine PDO in Europe based on the documents from the official EU geographical indication register. It includes essential legal information that defines the wine PDO such as the geographic boundaries, authorized cultivars and maximum yields. This inventory opens new possibilities for researchers to accurately assess, compare and map the regulatory information in each wine region at an unprecedented level of detail, supporting decision makers in developing adaptation strategies for the preservation of PDO wine regions.
