EU naming shame

Names like Chablis, Burgundy and, above all, Champagne (not to leave out Port, Sherry and Chianti) are in contention here. After reaching agreement with Australia and South Africa, the EU seems to have balked at the idea of banning the use of these names by US producers.

Instead, they have agreed to allow existing brands to continue such use (the most famous is perhaps Gallo's Hearty Burgundy). All the EU has been able to grab from the big commercial interests of the Americans is that future brands cannot use such names. As one American commentator pointed out, the ban will probably only apply to smaller California producers, since most of the big producers have already created the brands they want.

Bruno Paillard in Champagne has called it a defeat for Europe. Michel Laroche in Chablis complains that Americans can still use the name Chablis for basic whites, when they have nothing to do with Chablis'. The European parliament has denounced the accord.

But the fact that the French exporters' association likes it shows that this is an agreement to preserve exports, not historical appellations. America has become the largest export market for Italy, remains one of the largest for France and is growing fast for Spain, Portugal and Austria, and sales of $2.3bn will not be put to one side to protect archaic appellations.

There must be two views on this, and I am not sure which side I fall. One view is that wine is, after all, business, and what's good for European wine exports is good for European wine. The other is that appellation names, however much abused, do

mean something in addition to a pretty name on a bottle. Champagne is unique, so is Chablis: the wines come from one place, with those names. Should those names be abused over the long term for the sake of short-term profits?



Watch the pages of Harpers over the next few months as French wine producers come up with glowing reports of the 2005 harvest. Sitting opposite Michel Rolland at lunch at Chteau de Gay in Pomerol last week, I was struck by the emphasis he put on the quality of the wines this year. It's good throughout Bordeaux,' he said. The wines are almost Californian in their richness. The growing conditions were perfect, with great sunshine, but not the heat of 2003, and cool nights.'

In addition, the continuing warm weather, right up to the end of October, has meant that fermentations have gone easily, and the malolactic fermentations have also started without major problems.

Putting aside the inevitable pressure on prices for wines that will certainly be better than 2003, it is exciting being present when great wines go into the barrel. I tasted Chteau de Gay 2005 that day, and I can attest to its quality, and to the intensity and fruit characters it had even as it went into barrel.



While the fermentations finish up, it's ironic to note that more and more of the wine now so carefully harvested and fermented will actually end up in the distillery. Dominique Bussereau, the French minister of agriculture, has announced that between two million and three million hectolitres of wine (mainly table wine, but also some vin de pays and AOC wine) are to be distilled in order to eliminate stocks from previous harvests and correct the wine market.'

This enforced distillation comes at a time when the wine producers are complaining about the drop in prices for table wine. Figures of e2.20 are being quoted, against the official base price of e3. Denis Verdier of the cooperative producers' organisation says that it is suicidal for a grower to sell vin de table below e3 a hectolitre', and any economist would probably agree with him.

At the same time, the agriculture minister has demanded that quantities of vin de pays are placed in a reserve. This reserve will work in the same way as the reserve for Champagne that has operated over many years: wines will be placed in reserve stock in order to balance the market.

Intervention in the market is a long-held and cherished French government tradition. And for the poor grower down in the Languedoc, for whom things get worse year by year, these interventions probably offer some relief. But the problem won't go away, and I am still not convinced that the French wine authorities know what they will do in the long term.