Article
The end of the conflict between IVV and ASAE?
For years, Portuguese operators in wine spirits and brandies lived with a paradox: practices culturally recognised and informally accepted within the sector could still trigger seizures or criminal proceedings under a stricter literal reading of EU spirits law.
This English version follows the Portuguese VinumLex original and is presented here for informative reading. The Portuguese original remains the reference source for archival purposes.
A silent but serious conflict
The Portuguese tradition of flavouring wine spirits is not new. Raisins, dried plums, almond skin and certain woods belong to a long cultural and sensory tradition. Consumers knew those flavours; operators regarded them as part of their identity. The legal difficulty was that, at EU level, aromatisation is prohibited unless the relevant traditional methods are recognised in national law.
Other Member States moved earlier to codify their traditional methods. Portugal delayed, and that delay created a space of legal insecurity.
OTE 5/2023 and its limits
IVV attempted to provide practical guidance through the well-known Technical Guidance OTE 5/2023, which listed traditional processes and flavouring practices that should be accepted.
The problem was that the guidance had no binding force. ASAE was not obliged to follow it and could continue to apply the EU spirits framework literally, treating flavouring other than caramel as unlawful where it was not recognised in national legislation.
Why Ordinance No. 275/2025/1 matters
Ordinance No. 275/2025/1 is important because it finally identifies the traditional flavouring methods admitted for wine spirit, grape marc spirit and brandy. In that sense, it resolves the central normative gap that had fuelled years of conflict between sector practice and enforcement logic.
Its significance is not merely technical. It reduces the risk of seizures, forced reclassification into generic spirit categories and sudden marketing disruption for products rooted in Portuguese tradition.
Has the conflict really ended?
The answer is largely positive, but not absolute. A formal legal basis now exists, which is a decisive step. Even so, compliance still depends on exact product qualification, correct category placement, lawful labelling and evidence that the adopted method falls within the recognised traditional framework.
In other words, the war may be ending at the level of basic legal admissibility, but producers still need careful legal discipline in composition, category description and market presentation.