On Wine: What's in a name? EU whines plenty

Published December 28, 2005 at midnight

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Remember Rhine wine, Mountain Chablis and hearty Burgundy? When champagne and sherry and Madeira could be found in the cooking aisle?

That was then. A recent World Trade Organization agreement cracked down on our use of those names, along with Burgundy, chianti, claret, Haut-Sauterne, hock, Marsala, Malaga, Moselle, port, retsina, Sauterne and Tokay.

We conceded in order to be able to sell U.S. wine freely in Europe, something vigorously protested by European Union farmers' organizations.

"It cannot be that American artificial wine ends up on the German market," howled Farm Minister Horst Seehofer. "German quality wines will be drowned by cheap laboratory wines!"

But in the end, keeping their traditional names was more important than banning our pharmaceutical crud.

"The EU will do its utmost to achieve better protection for regional quality products," said European Farm Commissioner Franz Fischler. "From Europe's Roquefort cheese to India's Darjeeling tea, from Guatemala's Antigua coffee to Morocco's Argan oil."

To U.S. and other trading partners, a little uneasy about Fischler's "protection," he retorts, "This is not about protectionism. It is about fairness."

Wines and spirits are currently held to a higher level of "fairness" than are other products. Blacklisted wine names, for instance, are prohibited even when paired with the wine's true origin, as in Finger Lakes Champagne. Ditto such qualifiers as -style, -kind, -type and -imitation, as well as "traditional expressions," a category including things like sherry descriptors cream, tawny and ruby.

Food producers fear this is but the EU's nose under the tent. Hog-tying food this way could be catastrophic, considering the Old Country origins of most of our cuisine. If the EU prevails, even pseudo-generics like cheddar, Parmesan and Dijon mustard will go. Never mind if it was U.S. manufacturers who made a "brand" famous, or even if it holds a U.S. trademark.

As far as the EU is concerned, American trademarks count for bupkus, even as their own geographical indicators are sacred. The EU currently recognizes around 600 indicators in Europe and none in America. Parma ham is in; Florida oranges and Idaho potatoes are out. A French producer can call his wine Kiwi, despite protests from down under, but Anheuser-Busch is stripped of its Bud and Budweiser trademarks within the EU.

While our trademarks protect intellectual property, Europe safeguards terroir, the concept that place matters more than ingredients, process or producer. This is at once attractive to high-interest wine buyers and impenetrable to the rest. While collectors of Grands Crus no doubt know their left bank from their right, the average drinker is confounded just keeping up with the main eight or nine grapes.

What's more, Americans, for the most part, don't particularly care where their food and wine comes from. The Office of Champagne has been running a series of magazine ads that begin with a statement like: "Gulf Shrimp from Nebraska?" or "Monterey Jack from Alaska?" then segue to the horrific proposition: "Champagne not from Champagne!?"

Pardonnez-moi, but I suspect that far from resonating with most Americans, this backfires. To "Valencia Oranges from Maine?" we say, "Cool! Must be some new hydroponic thing."

Even the most ardent single-farmer chervil connoisseur probably doesn't notice whence his shrimp were farmed or his milk squeezed. As for Monterey Jack, I doubt it's occurred to one in a million taco eaters that Monterey refers to a place, let alone where it is, and that it matters.

What most wine consumers want to know is simply what to expect in the bottle. Varietal labeling (Shiraz, chardonnay) took off here not because we particularly care about the grape, but because it was easier. We can count on something labeled "merlot" to be dry, red and taste something like the last one we had.

Australia sees justice at the end of the tunnel. Their trade body theorizes that as port and sherry are phased out and "vintage liqueur" or "fortified red stuff" is phased in, consumers gradually will forget all about those once-generic Euro names. Instead of being the beneficiary of our marketing and consumers, they posit, eventually Europe and its archaic appellations and regulations will be left out in the cold.

Recommended

WHITE

• Beringer Founder's Estate California Pinot Grigio 2004 (US) $11

• Marqués de Cáceres Antea white Rioja 2002 (Spain) $12

• St. Supery Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc 2004 (US) $19

• Hendry Blocks 19 & 20 Dijon Clones Napa Valley Chardonnay 2002 (US) $25

RED

• Castle Rock Carneros Pinot Noir 2003 (US) $10

• Dom Martinho Vinho Regional Alentejano 2002 (Portugal) $13

• Matanzas Creek Sonoma County Syrah 2002 (US) $25

• Sea Smoke Botella Santa Rita Hills Pinot Noir 2003 (US) $30

Chotzi@aol.com