The PNV backtracks and withdraws its proposal to modify the law that regulates appellations of origin and its attempt to divide the Rioja Denomination of Origin to create a new one in the territory of Álava. The PNV parliamentary spokesman, Aitor Esteban, announced this Thursday that he has decided to withdraw the non-law proposal that was going to be debated in the next Plenary of Congress after the Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, has promised to open a debate “serene” on this question. The initiative would allow the Rioja denomination to be subdivided and the PP had already announced its frontal opposition. Esteban wanted to make it clear that with his initiative the Basque nationalists did not seek to break the denominations of origin but to improve their specificity, but he lamented the “absolutely exaggerated” reaction of the PP with his proposal.
Grupo Rioja, which encompasses the wineries that sell 60% of the wine produced in Álava under this name, had already flatly rejected the PNV’s new attempt to break the unity of what is the main wine-growing area in our country.
The general director of the association, Íñigo Torres, has assured in statements to Onda Cero that the nationalist initiative that sought to “break the fair competition that we have”, with which “the strength of exports” would have been lost.
That of this Group is not the only reaction against the latest attempt by the PNV to detach itself from its neighboring community. The president of La Rioja, the socialist Concha Andreu, had convened a summit of political parties, agrarian organizations and different economic forces next Monday afternoon, just 24 hours before the PNV Law proposal to modify the Law is debated. of Supraautonomic Denominations.
New split attempt
In any case, it is not the PNV’s first attempt to create a denomination parallel to that of Rioja, which also includes Álava’s wine production, but in this case it has unleashed the alarm given that the nationalists are negotiating the budget with the Government . Just a few weeks ago, he registered a proposal to create the DO Viñedos de Álava, an initiative opposed by the Ministry and which the European Union will have to clarify. Now, in parallel, he had found another door to fulfill his old dream.
In summary, it is about modifying Law 6/2015, which regulates appellations of origin that cover more than one Community. In its proposal, the PNV requested that when there is a delimited geographic unit smaller than the production area of the Denomination and a number of operators registered in the PDO equal to or greater than 60% in the same request it, they will be attributed to an entity of management called the Regulatory Council, the attributions of control, production, commercialization and sanction, among others.
In practice, this means creating a parallel Regulatory Council that would break the uniqueness and singularity of Rioja, the leading denomination in our country for the commercialization of quality and export wine. Industry sources consider that this would mean that “a part of the Denomination’s winegrowers would appropriate the Rioja brand, which belongs to everyone.”
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