Quality wines in Italy and France: A dataset of protected designation of origin specifications

Abstract

Italy and France are historically among the countries that produce the most prestigious wines worldwide. In Europe, these two countries together produce more than half of the wines classified under the Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) label, the strictest quality mark of food and wines in the European Union. Due to their long tradition in wine protection, Italy and France include highly detailed specifications in their wine PDO regulatory documents that are usually not available for other countries, such as specific information about the main cultivars that must be used to make each wine or the required planting density in the vineyards. However, this information is scattered throughout the documents of each wine production area and has never been extracted and homogenised in a unique dataset. Here, we present the first dataset that characterizes the PDO wines produced in Italy and France at very high detail based on the information from the official EU geographical indication register. For each country it includes a standardized list of the PDO wine names, linked with their specific requirements, such as the wine colour, type, cultivars used and maximum allowed yields. The unprecedented level of detail of this dataset allows for the first time the analysis of more than 5000 traditional wines and their legal and agronomic specifications. This gives insights into the interplay between the European Union quality regulation policy, the wine sector, and agronomic practices, enabling researchers and practitioners to analyze wine production in the context of specific regulations or economic scenarios.