The Wine Act in force in the Republic of Croatia was passed by the Croatian Parliament and published in the official gazette of the Republic of Croatia “Narodne Novine” NN no. 96/03.[http://narodne-novine.nn.hr/clanci/sluzbeni/305807.html Under Article 1, the Act regulates grape production, trade and processing, production and trade of wine and other grape and wine products, distillation, labelling, protection of geographical indications, production and trade of fruit wines and other products based thereon, tasks of the Croatian Institute of Viticulture and Enology, creation and management of vineyard cadastre and other issues related to the implementation of a unique system of production and trade of wine grapes, must, wine and other grape products, fruit wines and other wines containing wine or fruit wine. The above-stated ZOV was preceded by ZOV passed by the Parliament of the Socialist Republic of Croatia on 29 January 1976 (published in NN 5/76). That Act also regulated numerous significant activities related to production, labelling and protection of geographical indications, trade, control and monitoring. The older ZOV was used as the basis for passing the Ordinance Governing Wine-Growing Regions, Production and Trade of Grape and Wine Products (published in NN 34/78), now replaced by the Ordinance Governing Protected Geographical Indication Wine Labelling (NN 7/05) preceded by similar regulations (published in NN 96/96, 7/97, 117/97 and 57/00) that are no longer in force.
The authorities have been trying to regulate wine production, especially wine trade, since ancient times, which is confirmed by numerous documents – from reliefs and inscriptions on Egyptian temples to town statutes and other regulations. First contemporary wine laws were passed at the turn of the twentieth century. At that time, Austrian and Hungarian regulations were in force in the territory of today’s Republic of Croatia. After the First World War, a new Wine Act was passed only on 9 December 1929, while the Ordinance governing the implementation of the respective act “came to life” in less than a year (on 14 August 1930). Twelve years after the end of the Second World War, ZOV took effect in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (on 1 August 1957), which was published in the Official Gazette 31/57 dated 10 July 1957, noting that the Ordinances (I-V) and Orders pertaining thereto were passed by the Secretariat of Agriculture and Forestry of the Federal Executive Council. As stated earlier, the first Wine Act passed by the Croatian Parliament was the 1976 Act, and the first ZOV in the independent Croatia was passed twenty years later, namely on 1 June 1996. Once the Viticulture Act is passed, many chapters currently comprised in ZOV (such as regionalisation of viticulture, cultivars etc.) shall be regulated by that respective document of great importance to viticulture and enology.
See POV (Pravilnik o označavanju vina oznakom zemljopisnog podrijetla (NN 7/05.)Wine Ordinances).
