ITALY is mourning the loss of one of its most famous white wines, which, the European Union has ruled, from next year can be produced only in Hungary.

Wine producers in Friuli, the northern Italian region where Tocai (or Tokai) has been made for centuries, fear financial losses and a drop in sales when their wine is rebranded as “Friulano”.

Bruno Pizzul, a wine expert from Gorizia, the centre of the Tocai vineyards, says: “It is not easy to relaunch a wine which has lost its name. In the wine industry, labelling is all.”

The battle between Italy and Hungary over Tocai dates back half a century, to when Monipex, a Hungarian wine conglomerate, took legal action in Trieste, claiming that only wine produced in the Tokaji region of Hungary could legally bear the name. The court ruled that both Italian and Hungarian producers could market Tocai, a ruling later upheld by the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

However, as part of the agreements for Hungary’s accession to the EU in 2004, Hungary was given exclusive rights to the Tokai label from the end of March next year. An appeal by the Friuli-Venezia-Giulia region of Italy to the European Court has been turned down, with the judges ruling that Italian Tocai “does not qualify as a geographical indication” because “it has no special quality, reputation or characteristic that is attributable to its geographic origin”.

Gianola Nonino, whose family has been making wine at Udine in Friuli for generations, called the decision “appalling”.

“They have stolen a part of our history,” she said, adding that the new name, Friulano, was “terrible”, since it was simply an adjective describing anything that comes from Friuli.

Marco Felluga, another leading Friuli wine producer, said that the loss of the Tocai brand was “incredible . . . Italy has lost its wine war with Hungary. It’s like saying that from tomorrow Italians cannot call pizza pizza any more.”

Signor Pizzul said that the row was “particularly absurd because the Italian and Hungarian versions of Tocai are quite different”. Italian Tocai is an aromatic dry white made entirely from the Tocai grape (known as Sauvignon Vert in France), whereas Hungarian Tokai or Tokaji is a sweet dessert wine made using Furmint and Haréslvelü grapes.

Eight million bottles of Tocai are produced each year on 1,300 hectares of Friuli vineyards, with 30 per cent going for export. Count Filippo Formentini, whose family has been making wine in the hills near Gorizia for centuries, said that use of the name could be dated to at least 1632, when his ancestor, Countess Aurora Formentini, married Count Adam Batthyany of Hungary, bringing with her 300 Tocai vines as part of her dowry.

The last Italian Tocai grape harvest was marked by a midnight ceremony on the beach at Lignano, near Udine. Ten local beauty pageant contestants watched by a large crowd of Tocai-drinkers hitched up their skirts and trampled Tocai grapes in wooden vats to the rhythm of disco music.

“I expect we will still ask for a Tocai when we pop into the local bar,” one local man said as the music stopped for a minute’s silence to mourn “the passing of a great tradition”.

Ornella Venica, head of the Dolegna del Collio wine consortium, said: “We can only try to build something out of the ruins . . . We must use the relaunch of Friulano as a marketing opportunity.”

Central and regional governments have promised €15 million (£10 million) in financial aid to wine producers to help to relaunch “Friulano”. The 2006 Italian Tocai vintage, meanwhile, looks certain to become a collectors’ item.

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