What's in a name?
Well you may or may not know that the name Champagne is used exclusively for the sparkling wine made in the Champagne region of France, and which adheres to the standards defined for it. This means that many other fantastic sparkling wines in France (or any other country for that matter) cannot be called champagne even if they are considered to be as good as, or even better, than the real thing.
This got me thinking about other things that this may apply to so I had a little mooch on Google and came up with a few, all in the food and drink category interestingly: the first one I did know about, the Cornish Pasty. You can get a pasty almost anywhere, but for it to be called a Cornish Pasty it must be made in Cornwall.
Next was Feta Cheese which has to come from Greece to be called Feta.
Raclette must come from Switzerland and Baklava fromTurkey.
Bratwurst, Spatzie and Sauerkraut can only be made in Germany and if you want Halloumi you must source it from Cyprus.
Which is all fair enough I suppose, but it brings me back to the question of Champagne. Because I think that all of these patents are applied because the product is linked to a place, and the place believes that their product is the best.
Today we went to visit a wine cooperative at Bailly Lapierre, in Burgundy, to learn about their unique method for making sparkling wine.
Near Auxerre, in the valley of theYonne, fifty metres underground, Bailly Lapierre was created on the site of a former quarry. These 'caves' offer unique conditions for developing wines, some of which are on a par with those from the Champagne region: a constant temperature of 12 °C, a naturally high humidity of about 80% and a natural low light level that preserves the quality of the wines made and stored there. The result of these conditions and the processes used in production mean that the sparkling wines produced are of exceptionally high quality.
And yet they are not allowed to be known as 'Champagne' and more importantly are considered to be inferior in quality. After decades of proving their quality, in 1975, a statute officially recognised their wine: it became France’s first Crémant appellation (along with that of the Loire Valley winegrowers).
Interestingly, the word 'crèmant' is a word that was used to describe an inferior wine in the Champagne region, so to turn that around to imply high quality was an achievement indeed.
I have to say that, at a third of the price, I would rather drink 'not champagne' from Burgundy, especially when the quality is of an equally high standard- in my opinion of course.
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