The government will next year stop subsidising producers who take their grapes to the Pitkali, the government's vegetable market, in order to act as an incentive to produce grapes for squeezing, Resources and Rural Affairs Minister George Pullicino said yesterday.

Speaking during a visit to the vineyards owned by the Cortis family in Rabat, Mr Pullicino said the change will be introduced for the 2009 production and will eliminate the discrimination producers are suffering when they sell their grapes directly to the wine producers.

He explained that whoever grows grapes will still receive the €81.53 subsidy for every tumolo of land but the initiative is being taken so as to serve as an incentive for more farmers to supply more grapes and sell them directly to wine-making individuals.

Mr Pullicino also announced an amendment to Legal Notice 190 of 2006 on the DOK certification which stands for Denominazzjoni ta' Oriġini Kontrollata. He said that over the last year, a number of foreign wines, especially Italian and Spanish, appeared on the Maltese market but these were bottled in Malta. The pictorials on the labels, with pictures of Maltese locations, gave the impression that the wine was Maltese. The amendments to the law would regularise this.