first second ] CANCELLED DESIGNATION OF ORIGIN [by Francesco Antonini ] Twenty years after bidding farewell to the name imposed by the European Union, bottles of Friulian Tocai reappear in public and reignite the debate. Giving in was a serious mistake. No, it was inevitable. The politicians had already made their decision. Chronicle of a long farewell that still divides. T he most effective slogan is by cartoonist Skiaffino: cancelled designation of origin. It accurately reflects the sense of emptiness that prevailed in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region twenty years ago, when it became clear that all the attempts to change the European Union s mind were doomed to failure. The battle over the name of the region s most beloved white wine, Tocai, was irretrievably lost. Starting with the 2008 harvest, those five magical letters could no longer appear on bottle labels and were replaced by the word Friulano, a compromise solution that emerged at the end of a long struggle involving consortia, experts and marketing agents, but which never managed to convince everyone. Twenty years later, however, something is happening. Or rather, someone. Piero Mauro Zanin and Franco Corleone for years on opposite sides of the political fence but often together in battles of principle, such as the one for the law on restoring honour to those shot during the war or for the restoration of the place name Promosio, which had been mangled by bureaucracy into Pramosio - have brought Tocai back to life. They did so by printing a hundred personalised labels on bottles of Friulano produced in Cividale by Bruna Flaibani, a tireless 2 woman with a lot of experience in the wine industry and standard-bearer for the Italian Federation of Independent Winegrowers (FIVI, Federazione Italiana Vignaioli Indipendenti). A symbolic battle Let us clarify immediately that there is nothing illegal about this demonstration. While it is true that the regulations provide for penalties for those who use the name Tocai on bottles intended for sale, the ones personalised with Corleone and Zanin circumvent these penalties as they are not for sale. They were given as gifts to friends and to those who took part in the public presentation on 28 January, in a venue highly evocative of identity and traditions, namely the Friulian Philological Society (Societ Filologica Friulana) of Udine. This, said Corleone, former undersecretary of justice in the late 1990s, in the city Udine, is not a prank, but a claim to identity. Our roots, echoed Zanin, former president of the Regional Council, former mayor and provincial councillor, must retain their value, otherwise we will all become mere consumers, indistinguishable from one another. Bruna Flaibani highlighted the paradox of the regulation, which