Keeping wine exporters up to date ✉️🍇
No images? Click here
Welcome to the July 2025 edition of Wine News. All previous newsletters are available on the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) website.
In this month’s edition we will cover:
- Onward certification requirements for the European Union
- MPI Trade Certification
- Exporting organic wine
- Pregnancy warning labels for de-alcoholised wines
- Exporter Help
- Reader satisfaction survey
Onwards certification requirements for the European Union
Exporters wishing to retain flexibility to move wine exported from Great Britain and Australia to the EU must ensure that the wine is eligible for the EU market at the time the export request is raised in MPI Trade Certification. MPI can only provide a VI-1 Document, if the product is eligible for the EU on or before export from New Zealand.
If you are planning to re-export bulk wine to the EU, please ensure that the export request is limited to one flexitank per consignment and includes a CN code for the EU.
Further information is available in the links below:
- Wine News: What to do if you re-export wine to the European Union - 26 March 2025
- Wine Notice: Great Britain Wine OMAR (search under ‘official’)
- Wine Notice: European Union Wine OMAR (search under ‘official’)
- MPI Trade Certification user guide – Wine businesses (search under ‘Great’)
MPI Trade Certification
In this section you will find information to help you use MPI Trade Certification. Refer to the MPI Trade Certification User Guide with more detailed information, available here.
Entering mixed/partial cases into an export request
Export requests with mixed/part cases or a case that consists of multiple different wines need to be entered manually in a specific format as the total number of cases is not automatically calculated. The number of cases entered needs to be greater than zero and must be a whole number. Therefore, extra bottles that are being added to another case need to be entered as:
- Number of cases: one
- Bottles per case: the number of bottles
- Number of extra bottles: zero
Refer to section 12.1 of the MPI Trade Certification User Guide.
E-STAR interaction
MPI Trade Certification interacts with E-STAR to generate WTR numbers for samples and provide sample details to the recognised laboratories. Please ensure all product details (including grape variety, main wine name, EU wine category and winemaker reference numbers) entered into MPI Trade Certification are correct before requesting chemistry testing, as once the sample details are in the laboratory system they cannot be updated. If any changes are required, the original test will need to be cancelled and a new one (with a new WTR number) will need to be requested and provided to the laboratory. This ensures that the lab is viewing the correct data for the product they are testing.
Refer to section 9 of the MPI Trade Certification User Guide for more information about the chemistry tests process. Please contact Wine Assurance at wine.query@mpi.govt.nz if you are unable to cancel the chemistry test.
Grape variety list
The list of grape varieties available for selection in MPI Trade Certification has been revised.
If your batch was registered in Wine e-Cert with a grape variety that is not available in MPI Trade Certification, the grape variety field has been migrated as a blank field. Please send an email to tradecertification@mpi.govt.nz advising the grape variety that needs to be added to the product ID, if you cannot do so yourself.
Wine varieties previously available to select (e.g. rose or blush) can be added as a suffix in the main wine name or via the alternate wine name. Refer to section 5.1 of the MPI Trade Certification User Guide.
Exporting organic wine reminders
If your wine is also being exported under the MPI Official Organic Assurance Programme (OOAP), please remember that some organic markets have strict deadlines for getting the official organic assurance.
MPI encourages organic exporters to work closely with their freight forwarders to ensure you are kept updated with timely advice about changes to shipping.
- If you are exporting organic wine to European Union, Switzerland, Norway, and/or Northern Ireland, the Certificate of (organic) Inspection (COI) must be issued in the European Union’s electronic certification system (TRACES) before the wine leaves New Zealand.
- If you are exporting organic wine to the United Kingdom (excluding Northern Ireland), the Great Britain Certificate of (organic) Inspection (GB-COI) must be issued in MPI Trade Certification before the wine leaves New Zealand.
- If you are exporting organic wine to the United States of America, the National Organic Program (NOP) Import Certificate must be requested before the wine leave New Zealand
You can get in touch with our Organic Assurance team for further information by:
Email organics@mpi.govt.nz
Phone 0800 674 490
New Zealand pregnancy warning labels for de-alcoholised wines
Pregnancy warning labels are only required for ‘prescribed alcoholic beverages’ that contain more than 1.15% alcohol. 'Prescribed alcoholic beverages' are drinks that are intended for retail sale (or are sold as suitable for retail sale without any further processing, packaging or labelling required).
An exception applies if the prescribed alcoholic beverage is packaged in the presence of the purchaser, in which case it does not require a pregnancy warning label.
More information, including FAQ’s on the pregnancy warning label requirements (and when these apply) can be found on the here.
If you have any further queries about the requirements, please email wine.rules@mpi.govt.nz.
Exporter Help
Our MPI Exporter Help team supports small and medium-sized New Zealand food and fibre businesses on their export journey.
The free service delivers one-to-one advice, develops educational resources such as guides and webinars, and works collaboratively within MPI to share insights and minimise exporter challenges. The team helps exporters and those working with exporters at all stages of their journey, from those thinking about exporting, to established exporters needing clarification on requirements. Understanding export requirements can be confusing for businesses, and Exporter Help provides accurate information that makes it easier for businesses to export efficiently and avoid costly errors.
Export requirements vary for New Zealand grape wine products, depending on the destination market. Whether you're making wine to export yourself, making it under contract for an exporter, or buying wine for export, you must comply with the Wine Act 2003. You can find a step-by-step process for exporting New Zealand grape wine on our website, along with other resources and information to help you meet the requirements of overseas markets.
You can get in touch with our Exporter Help team by:
Email exporterhelp@mpi.govt.nz
Phone 0800 674 490
Website www.mpi.govt.nz/exporterhelp
Reader satisfaction survey
Your feedback is important to us, and we'd greatly appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to complete a short survey about your experience receiving Wine News.
Complete the short survey here 👉 Wine News survey
Contact Us
If there are specific items that you would like us to cover in future editions, please get in touch with us.
Wine Assurance, New Zealand Food Safety — Haumaru Kai Aotearoa
Email wine.query@mpi.govt.nz
Website Exporting NZ grape wine | NZ Government (mpi.govt.nz)
For updates on export information such as OMARs and FYI documents, click the link below.
