Until the early 1990s, it was common for Australian wine lists to feature local Hock, Burgundy or Moselle. As recently as 2010, much to the horror of the French, Australian sparkling wine was usually labelled Champagne. The appropriation of European regional names for our local drops has since been phased out, beginning with trade talks with the European Union in 1986. The first Australia-EU Wine Trade Agreement came into effect in 1994.
In 1992, Chris Shanahan wrote in The Canberra Times:
FAREWELL (and good riddance) Australian Beaujolais, Burgundy, Chablis, Chianti, Champagne, Garet, Frascati, Graves, Hock, Lambrusco, Moselle, Madeira, Marsala, Malaga, Port, Riesling, Sherry, Sauternes, White Bordeaux, White Burgundy, etc. etc, etc. Your days are numbered (officially).
After the initial agreement with the EU, the first names to be removed were Beaujolais, Cava, Frascati, Sancerre, St-Émilion, and White Bordeaux, followed at the end of 1997 by Chianti, Frontignan, Hock, Madeira, and Malaga. It took longer for the more commonly used terms to be abandoned. Houghton’s White Burgundy, for instance, didn’t change its name to Houghton’s White Classic until 2005.
A second Australia-EU Wine Trade Agreement was negotiated in 2008, giving a deadline of 2010 for a stricter enforcement of European geographical indications. It was no longer legal for Australian sparkling wine to be called Champagne or even methode champenoise. Australian fortifieds could not be labelled sherry or port. Sherry is now called Apera, while our port became Australian Tawny. Tokay, of Hungarian origin, was given an extra 12 months’ grace. It became Topaque or fortified Muscadelle.
Chablis was another contentious term, often used generically for a style of dry, light white wine made from either Chardonnay or Semillon grapes. You could even buy it in a box, with Coolabah Chablis getting a complimentary write-up in The Canberra Times in 1984. From 2010, Australian Chablis was no more. Chris Shanahan was wrong about Riesling. As it’s a grape variety, it escaped the EU’s restrictions.
Today, the use of generic names for wine styles seems quaint. We are accustomed to having our wines identified by their grape variety. However, there was one that remained contentious: Prosecco. And it was something Australian producers were up in arms about. Prosecco was originally the name of the grape used to produce the light, sparkling wine we know and love. Then, in 2009, the Italians moved the goal posts. They decided to rename the grape Glera, allowing them to claim a protected geographical indication status for the wine style. In Italy, Prosecco isn’t even made in Prosecco. The wine’s namesake town is near Trieste, but the wine itself is now associated with the larger, distinct Conegliano-Valdobbiadene production area in the Veneto region of Italy.
The right to call their wine Prosecco is of particular importance to wine makers in Victoria’s King Valley, where there’s even a Prosecco Trail. Many of the vintners there are of Italian origin and the valley’s high altitude and cool climate are ideal for the cultivation of the Glera grape.
In 2023, the Singapore Court of Appeals ruled that Australian wine labelled Prosecco could mislead the public into thinking it was made in Italy. As a result, these wines can no longer be exported to Singapore. A similar ruling had been made in China in 2022. Australian Prosecco is also banned in New Zealand as a result of an EU-NZ trade deal. Producers argued that changing the name of the wine would hurt domestic sales.
In March 2026, the Australian producers had a win. Under a new Australia-European Union Free Trade Agreement, they were now permitted to market their product domestically as Prosecco. However, over the following ten years, they were required to phase out the term for exports.