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The Österreichische Traditionsweingüter (ÖTW) association, which has been endeavouring to classify vineyard sites since 1991 and now has 77 members, is facing legal challenges. A currently anonymous group with the website gluecklichelage.at is campaigning against last year's legal regulation on vineyard classification in Austria. It accuses "some Austrian winegrowers' associations" - including the Association of Styrian Terroir and Classic Wine Estates, STK, which is also striving for vineyard classification - of lobbying winegrowing policy-makers in a democratically non-transparent process to increase the value of vineyards. This leads to the financial upgrading of vineyards that are labelled as "Erste Lage" or in future also as "Große Lage" and thus to the "shifting of assets amounting to several hundred million euros". The operators of the website, which, contrary to data protection regulations, does not have an imprint, write the following motto: "Everyone should produce and label the wine as they wish - that's how simple and fair the free market economy works. Neither committees nor ministries should decide what a 'first' wine is, but responsible consumers." They are considering having the legislation for the new rating system legally reviewed and are asking for feedback by email by 15 January to gauge the mood. According to the daily newspaper "Der Standard", the group behind gluecklichelage.at will submit an individual application to the Constitutional Court as they believe their equal opportunities have been violated.
Michael Moosbrugger, chairman of the ÖTW, said in an interview with wein.plus: "Origin is a common good. Our association has an obligation to all winegrowing businesses. And our aim has always been to transfer the classification of vineyard sites from private law into law and thus make it accessible to all wineries according to objective criteria." The members of the ÖTW and STK are companies whose core competence is not branded wines, but their origin and marketing. They wanted to offer consumers worldwide security by naming classified vineyards. Moosbrugger is relaxed about a judicial review: "It is better if this is regulated now, before the regulation becomes law, than in a few years when the system is up and running. That gives legal certainty." He recalls that the Kamptal Klassik association had already taken legal action against the ÖTW's private-law classification of vineyard sites in 2008 and was not upheld.
From March, the ÖTW will have its own managing director for the first time, Michael Tischler-Zimmermann, former division manager of Österreich Wein-Marketing (ÖWM), who will be responsible for joint origin marketing worldwide. In addition, the first members from the Weinviertel region are to be accepted this year, and expansion into Burgenland is being sought. A merger of the ÖTW and STK associations also seems imminent. International co-operation with Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter (VDP) is also to be intensified.
(al / source: editorial team)