As of Jan. 1, 2023 State band on Manduria Doc bottles

As of Jan. 1, 2023, Primitivo di Manduria DOC and Primitivo di Manduria DOC Riserva wines will have to carry the state mark in order to be put on the market. 

An additional system to guarantee authenticity, aimed at protecting producers and consumers of DOC-labeled bottles, will accompany the wines of the great Apulian red to trace all the life stages of each bottle. 

A path that has already been started and that concerned the third brother of Manduria Dop, the DOCG dolce naturale, so, from January 1, all types of Primitivo di Manduria will have the state mark.  The initiative was strongly desired by the Board of Directors of the Consorzio di Tutela del Primitivo di Manduria chaired by Novella Pastorelli: 

"The choice traces an obligatory path aimed at the maximum protection of our denomination, which represents one of the fundamental tasks of our activity, thus completing a process that will make it possible to trace all the stages of the life of our productions, which begins in the vineyard, continues with the transformation of our excellent grapes to reach the stage of the passage to the bottle and the release for consumption, in the perspective of raising to the maximum the level of traceability of our Primitivo di Manduria and anti-counterfeiting while providing the maximum guarantee to the final consumer."

"Our choice testifies to a process of regeneration carried out by a system of companies-currently there are 67 member companies and 160 bottlers-which has set out to bring within a glass of Primitivo di Manduria the work of the winemakers, the beating heart of viticulture, the peculiarities of an indigenous grape variety and its own endogenous system. This is a heritage of innovation and competitiveness acquired that must be protected from the attacks of agropiracy, and our wine is at great risk of imitation. - Pastorelli concludes - The introduction of state bands aims to protect our wine in Italy but especially abroad." 

The new system is managed by Agroqualità, a certification company specialized in the agri-food sector of the Rina Group and the Italian Chamber System. 

The bands, printed by the Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, use special security systems that certify the authenticity of the product and contain visible and invisible anti-counterfeiting systems with traceability managed by databases. They are provided by an alphanumeric serial indication and a progressive identification number that identifies each individual bottle released for consumption.