Italy was unsuccessful in their last balsamic vinegar lawsuit against Germany.
Italy has announced they will initiate legal proceedings against Slovenia after the Balkan country decided to make changes surrounding balsamic vinegar and its authenticity.
Since 2009, Italy has protected the rights around balsamic vinegar, essentially this means that balsamic vinegar-also known as aceto balsamico di Modena-can only go by this name if it’s made in the Modena or Emilia-Romagna region.
In comparison, think of it how vineyards can only call their sparkling wine “champagne” if it’s produced in the French wine region of Champagne.
Slovenia has decided to regulate their production of the product, planning to label any wine vinegar mixed with concentrated fruit juice as “balsamic vinegar”.
This sent Italy into an uproar as they believe it will infringe on the quality and rights of the product with Italian Agriculture Minister Stefano Patuanelli saying the country would do “everything in our power to protect Balsamic Vinegar of Modena from such awful attacks”.
Slovenia drafted the bill in parliament last year but former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi gave permission to legal experts to start proceedings this year, which will be made to the European Commission.
However if the issue cannot be solved then it may go to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).
It’s not the first time Italy has taken another country to court over balsamic vinegar.
In 2019 they took a German company to court over the terms balsamico and Deutscher Balsamico and aceto but the CJEU ruled in favour of the German company.
It was deemed by the court that aceto balsamico di Modena “does not extend to the use of non-geographical individual terms” and that only that exact phrase has protected rights, not the individual words within.
According to Italian balsamic vinegar producers, the market is worth €1 billion.
