The Consorzio Tutela Vini Emilia has announced a major innovation: the introduction of an anti-counterfeiting state band on wine bottles. From 1 August 2025, all Emilia Igt wines will be equipped with this mark, ensuring greater transparency and safety for consumers. The band, created by the Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato according to the Ministry’s specifications, is mandatory for DOCGs, but optional for DOC and IGT. This mark, produced on watermarked paper, includes microtext, numbers and control codes, providing consumers with superior traceability and authenticity of the product. The control body will verify the correspondence between the quantities produced and bottled, issuing an adequate number of marks and monitoring their application on the bottles.
Inside the band there will be a QR code that can be scanned by the consumer and will allow access to the wine’s “Digital Passport”. This section will contain key information, including the serial and control code of the seal, the year of production, the batch and the certification. In addition, it will be possible to consult details on the producer, the Protection Consortium and the certifying body, as well as suggestions on food pairings and recipes that enhance Emilia Igt wines.
“The adoption of the State band for Emilia IGT wines represents a further step forward in our commitment to quality and consumer protection,” explains Davide Frascari, president of the Consorzio Tutela Vini Emilia. “This tool, which ensures the authenticity of the product, not only offers a guarantee against counterfeiting, but also helps to strengthen trust in our territory and its excellence.”
“By scanning the QR code on the bands, consumers will have access to all the essential information on the wine, such as its origin, organoleptic characteristics and production process. With this initiative, we aim to make each bottle even more traceable, offering those who buy our wines a complete and detailed overview of the quality and history of the product they have chosen”.
Emilia IGT wines will have an anti-counterfeiting state band
“We are very proud to present the agreement signed with the Consorzio Tutela Vini Emilia to protect this extraordinary Italian excellence with our label for IGT wines: the Zecca e Poligrafico dello Stato has always been the point of reference in the fight against counterfeiting and in the protection of Italian excellence in the agri-food sector, and it will be increasingly so also thanks to the technological developments that have enriched our products” declares the CEO of the Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca di Stato Francesco Soro.
“The fact that such an important IGT in terms of volumes produced has chosen in total freedom to adopt the State label is an aspect to be underlined and a signal of great importance. It is a decision that started from the base to give greater added value to the product”, comments Francesco Liantonio, president of Valoritalia.
A comment on the decision to adopt the State band also comes from the Honorable Marco Cerreto of the Agriculture Commission:
“This is the demonstration that when the Italian system moves in a synergic way it is capable of innovating and at the same time best preserving its own specificities. It is in this sense that I express my appreciation for the choice by a consortium for the protection of such an important IGT to adhere to the traceability system, which is not mandatory for them, moving in the direction of transparency to guarantee and protect consumers”.
“For both producers and consumers, every system that guarantees control over production, and therefore over its quality, is a determining factor in guiding purchasing choices”, finally adds Oreste Gerini, General Director of the territorial offices and Laboratories Masaf. “The decision to adopt for the IGT Emilia a band made with all the guarantees that the Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato and the controls of the Icqrf can provide, making each bottle unique and identifiable, certainly goes in this direction”.
The Consorzio Tutela Vini Emilia represents over 120 million bottles produced each year. Of these, the Lambrusco typology constitutes 90% with over 107 million bottles. Among the 29 members of the Consortium there are several cooperatives, for a total of over 5000 winemakers. In addition to Lambrusco, other typologies of wines produced with the IGT Emilia are for example Malvasia and Grechetto Gentile.
