When is champagne not champagne?
Well, according to both the French and the European Union, if the wine is made from grapes by the methode champenoise (not sure if this is an actual requirement), has bubbles and an alcohol content, is bottled in a champagne bottle with a cork and wire cap to contain the pressure AND all of the grapes were grown and bottled in the Champagne region of France, it is champagne. However, if the wine is made from grapes by the methode champenoise (again, not sure if this is an actual requirement), has bubbles and an alcohol content, is bottled in a champagne bottle with a cork and wire cap to contain the pressure BUT the grapes were grown and bottled outside of the French Champagne region, it is something else – sparkling wine, perhaps, but definitely not champagne.
Fortunately or unfortunately, the United States has never bought into this distinction though the supposed “powers that be” have agreed that US champagne producers can call the product champagne only if it is sold for domestic consumption (sold only in the US). It is interesting, however, that many of the better American champagnes do label themselves as sparkling wines, rather than champagne so there are no questions about their wine for export. That’s also true, of course, of the wines made in the US by French champagne houses, like Moet, Taittinger, Mumm and Roederer.
However, the French and the European Union can get pretty serious about this distinction. There was an article in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat yesterday http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20080111/NEWS/801110391 about 3200 cases of wine that were passing through Belgium on their way to Nigeria that happened to get caught in mid-shipment by Belgian Customs. The wine was Gallo’s Andre champagne; it was labeled California champagne; and it was being shipped by a third party (not Gallo). Well, Belgian Customs seized the shipment, dubbed it counterfeit (because it wasn’t made in France’s Champagne region) and had all 3200 cases destroyed by a bulldozer. Now, I could probably agree with Belgian Customs that this was not a very good wine; it was certainly not made using method champenoise; and there could be some question as to whether it should really be called champagne based on its provenance – some of that Gallo wine is made with Thompson seedless grapes (this may not be true of Andre) and most good champagnes are made with chardonnay and pinot noir grapes. However, this does seem to be something of an overreaction.
Seems to me that this is a branding problem for the French, though, I would expect that you can’t brand a region of a country – I think brands only work for businesses though I could be wrong. Anyway, I think what the French are facing is something that has also happened to such brands as Xerox, Kleenex and Google – the brand name has become part of the common language. Xerox has become a verb, a synonym for copy, for example, if I asked someone to xerox something for me, they would make a copy on the nearest copier, even if it was an HP. Kleenex is another word for tissue. And, Google has also become a verb meaning to search the web, whether you are using Yahoo, Ask or some other search engine. So I suppose the French can continue to fuss about this, but I suspect that, in some ways, they have already lost the war. If it sparkles, contains alcohol and it’s made from grapes, we all call it champagne.
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