In Altos de Pinto Bandeira, Brazil has just conquered its first exclusive Denomination of Origin for sparkling wines in the hills of the Brazilian Rio Grande do Sul state. Granted by the BPTO (Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office), the DO is equivalent to Champagne from France, Cava from Spain, and Franciacorta from Italy. The expectation is that this semester, the region’s wineries will already include the DO seal on the labels of their sparkling wine bottles.
The Altos de Pinto Bandeira DO covers 65 km² of continuous area, 76% of which is located in the municipality of Pinto Bandeira, 19% in Farroupilha, and 4% in Bento Gonçalves. It was requested in 2012 and involved several institutions, such as Embrapa and the Association of Pinto Bandeira Wine Producers (Asprovinho).
For the DO to be granted by the BPTO, producers had to meet a series of technical requirements, such as standardizing the production process in the territory. “The DO seal, which will stamp the labels of these sparkling wines, will differentiate them from any other in the world, guaranteeing the protection of the region’s producers,” explains Andréa Possinhas, ABPI’s Geographical Indications coordinator. According to Possinhas, this will prevent the undue use of the region’s name by producers from other locations, creating a bond of trust with the consumer, “who will know that he is purchasing a product manufactured in a unique location, the result of the differentiated viticultural know-how of the Altos de Pinto Bandeira producers.”
In Brazil, the Denomination of Origin (DO), as well as the Indication of Origin (IO) are Geographical Indication (GI) modalities. While DO refers to products from specific regions with characteristics provided by the geographic environment, including natural (climate, soil, and terrain) and human (production systems) factors, IO applies to products from regions that have become renowned.
