The winemakers of northern Italy are fighting to defend what they claim is their heritage against an unlikely twin threat — from Hungary and the American heiress Paris Hilton.

The battle with Budapest stems from a European Union decision allowing Hungary but not Italy to use the term “Tokai”, “Tocai” or “Tokaj”, although wine producers in Friuli-Venezia Giulia have been using it for centuries.

The tussle with Paris Hilton, meanwhile, is over a drink called Rich Prosecco and its advertising campaign featuring the heiress wearing nothing but a coating of gold paint, in imitation of the actress Shirley Eaton in the James Bond film Goldfinger.

On the whole Italians do not object to seeing Ms Hilton in the nude. What has caused anger is that she has not only used the name “prosecco”, which Italians regard as their copyright, but also — sacrilegiously — put the drink in a can and mixed it with fruit juice.

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The defence offered by Ms Hilton’s publicity machine is that Rich Prosecco is not being marketed in Italy. It was launched last year at a typically extravagant “mega-party” in the Austrian Alps. Ms Hilton, who emerged from a helicopter in a glittering dress, declared the drink to be “yummy”.

Günther Aloys, the businessman who created Rich Prosecco, said that she was “pleasant and uncomplicated. Nobody embodies carefree lust for life as convincingly and glamorously as Paris Hilton.”

However, in Treviso, one of the centres of Italian prosecco production, winemakers are not amused. Fulvio Brunetta, head of the Treviso branch of Coldiretti, the farmers’ union, said that Ms Hilton’s drink was an insult. He said Italian producers would meet this month to consider their response, “up to and including legal action”. Mr Brunetta said that he had nothing against Ms Hilton. “But she is . . . creating a generation of consumers who will forever associate the name of prosecco with something similar to an alcoholic fruit drink.”

He was supported by winemakers in neighbouring Friuli, who are taking a similar stand over a ruling by the European Court of Justice that they must use the name Friuliano for a wine now known as Tocai.

Hungarians say that only wine made in the Tokaj region of Hungary, where wine has been produced for 1,000 years, has a legitimate claim to the name. The Friuli-Venezia Giulia branch of Federdoc, the association of wine producers, wanted to call their wine Tocai Friuliano. “It would almost be comical if it were not so serious,” the association said. “Chambers of commerce that have to register Friuli wine for 2008 cannot because they don’t know what to call it.”

Hungary was given exclusive rights to the Tokai, Tokaj or Tocai label after its accession to the EU in 2004.

Liquid assets

8 million bottles of Tocai are produced in Italy each year 30% of these are exported

1 million cans of Rich Prosecco are said to have been sold in the first four months of sales

Source: Times archive

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