Can Sparkling Wine From The U.S. Be Called Champagne?

"Mike Tommasi" wrote ......

to which "Bi!!" wrote ...............

Bill, with an ounce of planning and some stability in the world's currency markets (lest I should convert all my holdings into Lilangeni!), it is my intention to again arrive in the general neighbourhood of Mr. Tommasi - some time around mid-September.

Whereupon, I shall demand that he and Cathy should invite me and my tribe to dinner at Chez Tommasi, where he can show me a bottle or two of those well-known and plentiful examples of *Burgundy* he quotes (Aligoté and Sauvignon de St Bris) matched perfectly with some local cuisine.

Methinks he will need to start his search very soon - lest he be found wanting !!!!!!!!!

Cheers

st.h

Good news !

Er, how about if I serve some REAL Burgundy. Who said B. Aligoté and Sauvignon de St Bris is Burgundy? :-)

To be fair M'Lawd I've had many a Kir in Burgundy made with Aligote and Brocard distributes a pretty fair Sauvignon de St Bris here in America. I do not think of either as being "Burgundy" however.

Speaking as a fan of St. Bris and the son-in-law of an inhabitant of Six-Fours, almost next door to Bandol, I think it is your request that M. Tomassi should match the wine to local cuisine which may cause the problem rather than finding the wine — maybe soupe de poisson minus the rouille? As for the Aligoté I have yet to be persuade that Canon Kir did not find the best use for it.

Tim Hartley

They are entitled to the Appellation — does that make them real or are we in Velveteen Rabbit territory where feeling loved was necessary before the poor toy rabbit became real?

Tim Hartley

Yep and I don't agree with that practice. I prefer the way its done in the USA.

That could often be said of many appellations. Thats why in the USA the appellation is labeled to give the consumer the information they need to make their choices.

I think most here are missing my point. The way wines are labeled in the USA works very well to inform the consumer. I feel the way it's done in France etc. is a limitation to the market. There may very well be excellent 'Burgundy' style wines made outside the Burgundy region but marketing conventions make it difficult to gain in the publics eye. That type of limitation doesn't exist in the USA and I prefer it that way.

Yes but Dungeness crabs in stores nationwide do not have to come from Washington. They come from all along the west coast. It is a species.

They shouldn't as it would confuse the consumer because it's too late to change. I do not wish the USA to adopt such practices. Labeling a wine NAPA is meaningless to me. Just put the appellation etc. on the label.

Actually, as stated here before. Basically, red burgundy is pinot noir and white is chardonnay and they do not blend varietals. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "common stock shelves" since there really aren't a lot of mass producers in burgundy. Perhaps Jadot and Drouhin?

I'll have to check next time at the store. There are cheap jugs of Burgundy I see often. While I love a good California or Oregon PN their styles are vastly different than any Burgundy I've tried. Perhaps I've tried the wrong ones or the availability where I am is limited.

Where are you? I haven't seen "jugs" of actual burgundy wines since it's generally quite expensive. If you click on the link that I posted in my previous post you'll get a better idea of why burgundy is so pricey. It's almost impossible these days to find it at under $30 a bottle since the land parcels are so tiny and production is so limited. Warning-do not search for great burgundy. Once you've tasted a great burgundy, from a good producer, in a good vintage, properly stored and aged, from a Grand Cru vineyard you will be moved to tears and will then spend the rest of your life searching for the holy grail of burgundy only to be crushed by the countless lesser wines that you will encounter.

Miles, I do not disagree with you but it is more than that. See, in my opinion once we became part of a global economy you have to take other trading partners into consideration.

While packaging laws vary from country to country some countries are very protective of their names. But for whatever the legal reasons we do not have to conform on geographical preferances. And that I beleived was the result of the WTO on some of the cases I have mentioned.

In my opinion this is a clashing of cultures and I beleive cheese in France is also geographical in naming. In my opinion we should NOT name items in the geographical names no matter what.

Would Schramsberg taste less good if it was called Sparkling wine vs Champaigne (they do not call it Champaigne by the way...that is an example.

How about KOBE beef, the imitati>

You are assuming consumers know what they are doing :-)

Appellations can lead to two extremes.

One extreme is the one you defend, where the appellation defines place alone and not much more, this is practically meaningless, if the only criterion is place, then you can make hundreds of different wines with nothing in common but the banal fact that they were made in the same area. If the provenance does not imply anything, then why indicate it at all?

The other extreme is to place so many limitations on an appellation that all the wines end up tasting the same, often modeled around some fuzzy notion of what is "typical", a very dangerous concept indeed because it tends to level everything and homogenize taste. Concepts of the "typical" are so subjective that they are not even worth discussing.

The whole point of defining an appellation is to define some of the necessary, but not sufficient, criteria for making a wine that one can recognize as coming from that place, because it somehow expresses the local terroir. For a given valuable winemaking area, usually one or two types of wine stand out because they are truly unique, they give such extraordinary results that, of all the hundreds of possible wines that a given area may produce, one or two have turned out to be exceptional, to the point that you could not make a wine like that in any other place.

I know many people laugh at the word terroir, and indeed if one reduces it to, say, just the soil (including the archstupid notion of tasting the soil), then there are so many other variables left free that the resulting wines would be vastly different and hard to identify. When you extend the notion of terroir to include soil, climate, but also viticultural practices, history, winemaking techniques, and so on, then you can limit the type of wines produced to those that truly stand out. On the other hand you cannot stifle creativity, and each winemaker, while remaining in the same "key" as his local collagues, can impart to that wine his own interpretation.

There are problems with appellations.

The new EU reform, which I have strongly criticized on many points on my blog, was conceived with at least in theory the idea of a two tiered wine classification, with on the one hand terroir wine (with its limits on geography, soil, practices etc.) and on the other hand brand wines, wines made for a wider market with no stylistic limitations, but still governed by rules to protect consumers on issues of health, envirnment, etc.. Unfortunately the resulting reform ends up failing on both fronts. It will become European law this summer. Not a directive (requiring each country to pass a law based on it), but a council regulation (i.e. a supranational law applicable in the 27 states without any further legal procedures required).

So while appellations could play a significant role in preserving the best terroirs (not just in Europe!), in fact they have become a perverse system that is no better than the idea of simply labelling provenance : meaningless. If you find a great wine today, it is because some intelligence and work has gone into it, and it MAY carry an appellation label...

This does not mean that one should not strive to get back to the original concept of appellation and "clean up" the mess. The US has a chance to lead the way and apply to the concept of terroir and appellation as it was conceived by its creators not so long ago... maybe Europe will then follow?

cheers

Mike

Not really. You are assuming that almost the only important factor in the flavour of a wine is the grape variety from which it is made. The place and type of soil upon which these grapes are grown isa certaily AS important and arguably more important for some varietals.

You only have to drink the muck called "Merlot" in most parts of the the USA (Walla walla is an honourable exception) and contrast that wth a Pomerol, or a Merlot from Tessin in Switzerland or one from Vilyán in Hungary.

While I've no objection to mantioning the grapes that have gone to make up a wine, the US naming procedure leads to as great a likelyhood of error and customer disappointment as the French, Italian, Spanish and German model does. The truth is that ignorant buyers will very possibly be disappointed no matter what system of naming you have.

No it isn't. It does on the other hand demand a liny bit of application in that in the French naming system, you can treat the name "Pomerol" as a kind of mnemonic for "Merlot", the phrase "red Burgundy" (despite the odd exceptions) is a mnemonic for Pinot Noir, and so on. It's really not beyond the wit even of the most limited varietally fixated drinker to get that. In any case increasingly the variety IS being mentioned, even if it's not supposed to be.

I've never tasted one. I've taste Pinot Noir wines from most leading PN growing areas in the world and none of them taste anything like a half way decent Burgundy. You may not accept that, but anyone here who's drunk the stuff will agree with me. Not even Domaine Drouhin, whose family are eminent Burgundy negociants and producers in Beaune, and who have an excellent estate in theWillamette valley, make a wine that much resembles a good Burgundy, delicious though it is _in its own right_. It doesn't NEED the burgundy name and cachet to sell under its own right. Anymore that does a decent sparkler from Germany or Spain or California need to pass itself off as Champagne. Actually it's a silly thing for most of them to do, as most (I'd say about 70%) true champagnes are awful muck anyway.

Fine. Then buy US wines, and let those of us prepared to make the minimal effort to remember that "Hermitage" means Syrah buy that. But please don't seek to impose the naming conventions of what is, after all a very minor wine producing country on other countries which have been making wine for 2000 years and in quantities that exceed that of the USA by at least an order of ten.

All the best Ian

Probably true! Years ago I was quite fine with my case of beer and some $5 box wine. Then my folks moved to Napa area so I was introduced to some 'real' wines when visiting. Theres no going back! But my wine and beer budget sure increased substantially!

Geography does mean something and is why USA wines state their appellation. However, there can be rot gut wine from the same region as a very top notch wine. I just prefer the way it's done in the USA. Works for me as a consumer just fine.

You can buy a lousy Burgundy and a top notch one. You can also buy a top notch PN from outside the Burgundy region. It comes down to ones particular tastes rather than a name. Two PN's from the exact same vineyard but different wineries, winemakers etc. can be totally different.

I prefer to let a winemaker do what he knows best and let the consumer decide what they like. Gives the consumer more variety.

Not true. Particular vineyard, winery, winemaker, etc. are all important. The vineyard and varietal alone do not make a wine. Besides, in the USA both are labeled as they should be.

Could be true. I have no desire for US Merlots. They for the most part lack any complexity, just nothing there of interest. Yet, they are one of the most widely purchased reds in the USA. I have no idea why.

To find a good wine one does need to be somewhat educated on the matter. Sometimes I feel the EU's method goes the way of thinking the consumer is too stupid to find the wine they like on their own.

Thats personal preference. I've tasted lousy PN's and great ones from California and Oregon. I really haven't cared at all for the Burgundies I've tried. Just a different style overall than what I prefer.

I maybe wrong but it seems that most in here prefer French and other European wines to California, Oregon and Washington wines. I'm the exception. I greatly prefer the big california reds over their French counterparts. Generally speaking they are different styles rather than one being better than the other. Just depends on personal tastes.

The people and skills that started making wines in the USA came from those 2000 year old wine making countries. They didn't start from scratch with no knowledge. So that point is moot. If you prefer EU wines then by all means buy them but please do not tell me they are better. Thats an opinion and all are entitled to such. As to Syrahs, I prefer Aussie Shiraz over California or Rhone styles but all are good.

is not that the nub of the "problem" : they are not counterparts, they are simply different.

Traditional wines grew into what they are to complement local foods.

Wines from new countries serve a different and wider market.

It's like trying to compare American football and rugby - certain surface similarities but fundamentally different beasts.

pk