According to a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), a winery can also market wine under its name that it presses in other wineries. During the work, only the eponymous wine producer is allowed to use the facility. He must lead the process and monitor it closely and constantly, the highest EU court announced on Thursday in Luxembourg.
The background is the case of a wine producer from the Moselle region. She also makes wine from grapes from leased vineyards further away. In order to press the grapes, the owner of the winery rented a facility from another winery. The state of Rhineland-Palatinate wanted to prohibit her from using the protected names “Weingut” and “Gutsabfüll” for this wine because the production did not take place entirely in her company. The manufacturer went to court against this and fought its way through the courts. The Federal Administrative Court turned to the ECJ on the question. It now has to decide on the specific case based on the specifications from Luxembourg.