Technical norms for Geographical Indications and their reflexes for the wine sector

¹ Center for Studies and Research in Agribusiness - Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul – CEPAN/UFRGS, Av. Bento Gonçalves, 7712 Porto Alegre, RS, Brasil
² Universidade do Extremo Sul de Santa Catarina – UNESC - Av. Universitária, 1105 - Bairro Universitário, 88806-000 Criciúma, Brasil
³ Ministério da Agricultura, Pecuária e Abastecimento – MAPA - Rua Rodrigues Alves 129, 6 o andar, sala 601-A, Praça Mauá, 20048-093 Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
⁴ Instituto Federal de Alagoas – IFAL – Rua Mizael Domingos, 75, Centro, 57020600 Maceió, Brasil

^a e-mail: kellybruch@gmail.com

Abstract

Does the establishment of technical standards for a geographical indication (GI) help in its sustainable development for the wine sector? Based on this question the present work aims to analyse the technical norms already published by the Brazilian Association of Technical Norms – ABNT, with the objective of examining if these can help in the structuring, recognition and sustainable development of the GI in Brazil. Two standards have already been published: Brazilian Standard ABNT NBR n. 16.479-2016 – Geographical Indication – Terminology; And the Brazilian Standard ABNT NBR n. 16.536-2016 – Geographical Indication – Guidelines for structuring a Geographical Indication for product. A technical standard dealing with the control of GI and a technical standard dealing with the GI management system are being elaborated. Considering the still recent publication of the standards, it was verified at the first moment the impossibility of investigating what would be the effective impacts of the technical norms in the wine-growing GI, as initially proposed. However, there is a gain that would not initially be considered: it was possible to systematize the best practices of GI available in Brazil through the elaboration of standards already published and those in the publication phase.