The Bill on “Vine and Wine” passed with the final reading
The Parliament adopted the Bill on Vine and Wine with the final reading.
According to the Chair of the Agrarian Issues Committee, Otar Danelia, the Bill is important for development of viticulture – a historically, culturally and economically priority sector of Georgia. “Viticulture is unambiguously recognized by the state as one of the economic priorities of the country and paramount for production and sale of competitive wine. We had to take the requirements of the local and international markets into account upon development of the legislative base. Adoption of the Bill facilitates to increase of Georgian wine quality and will arise interest of international markets and create the reputation of high quality wine producing country for Georgia”.
The Law is adopted in 1998 and has not been significantly amended since 2002. As O. Danelia noted, the terms therein should be brought into compliance with the EU and OIV legislation. The new terms have been added: “Pitcher Wine”, “Amber Wine”, “Ice Wine”, “Vine Genetic Resources” etc. The definitions have been contextually improved (technically revised) allowing vague interpretation of some provisions.
The outdated term – “Standard Assortment of Vine Species” has been withdrawn and replaced with the term “List of the Industrially Permitted Species”. The Bill defines the list of the “recommended vine species” according to the zones and sub-zones, specifies the vineyard categories and redefines spirit categories and production rules. According to O. Danelia, wine export is increasing as evidenced with the statistic: Georgia exported 25 ml bottles to 41 countries worldwide in January-May, 2017, which exceeds the similar index of 2016 with 64%.
Wine valued of 55 ml USD has been exported with the accounting period which exceeds the similar index of 2016 with 58%. Export increase is evident to: China, Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, Latvia, USA, Germany and wine expert increased five times to France.