Wine Desk
Wine Desk
Wine Desk, a team of professionals dedicated to wine law
Thanks to an in-depth knowledge of the wine trade, L2B Partners’ Wine Desk offers a wide range of legal services covering all aspects of the business.
Our expertise spans the full breadth of food & beverage and agri-food law.
The Wine Desk is led by Nicola Baù – Italian avvocato (lawyer), co-founder of L2B Partners and member of the International Wine Law Association – who has built up more than 20 years of experience in the sector.
With a passion for global connectivity, L2B Partners prides itself for its familiarity with foreign legal systems, particularly those countries which are the biggest importers of Italian wines, most of which have very different regulatory frameworks: for example, the USA, which has adopted a three-tier system of alcohol distribution, as compared to Canada, Sweden, Finland and Norway, which operate government monopolies.
Our expertise makes L2B Partners the ideal source of advice on all wine-related matters, not only for Italian producers who export (or who are looking to export), but also for foreign businesses thinking of setting up or investing in Italy.
Through our offices in the heart of Veneto (Vicenza-Padova) and Tuscany (Montalcino), two Italian regions with the greatest wine-making traditions, L2B Partners has been providing assistance and advice in relation to all the principal foreign wine markets: USA, Canada, other EU States, UK, Sweden, China, CIS Countries, South America and Australia.
L2B Partners’ Wine Desk is powered by a consolidated network of professionals with proven experience in the sector and located throughout most of the countries in the world. Our partners are chosen to meet the specific needs of each case and to guarantee the greatest efficiency in terms of service quality, speed and cost.
We have assisted
- Some of the most important Italian wine producers
- Business associations/ cooperatives
- Consortiums
- Laboratories for analysis
- Certification providers
- Consultants specialising in public funding, grant provision and agricultural subsidies
- Fair trade companies
- Manufacturers of wine related accessories
- Manufactures of technical solutions for vineyards
Our track record includes the following advice
- Establishment of a joint venture between US and Italian businesses to import wine into the USA
- Incorporation of a Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprise (WFOE) to import wine into China
- Structuring and drafting of supply chain contracts (accordi di filiera) with the aim of securing public grants
- Incorporation of several consortiums of wineries for internationalization and sustainability
- Drafting of cooperation agreements for the joint exercise of certain management processes (e.g. supplier sourcing, marketing, infrastructure projects)
- Advising on oversight by competent authorities (OLAF, Agecontrol) on use of public grants and appealing against sanctions
- Acquisition of a Tuscan estate by a foreign entrepreneur
- Setting up of a market place on e-commerce platform on behalf of a consortium of wineries
- Assisting one of the oldest Italian wine associations in the negotiation of a partnership with a German fair trade company
Our legal services related to the wine and agri-food sectors include the following
- Partnerships, joint ventures, cooperatives and consortiums
- EU law (including the regulations regarding common organisation of the markets in agricultural products)
- Corporate law and M&A
- Commercial contracts (sale, agency, distribution, consignment, consultancy, franchising)
- Real estate
- Anti-competition law and unfair trading practices in the agri-food supply chain
- Trademark and patent law
- Customs and transportation law
- Labelling
- Labour law
- Immigration law
- Organisation and management models in accordance with Legislative Decree no. 231/2001