It has become increasingly common in the last decades the claim (mainly from rich but declining countries facing new competitors) that a particular food can only be made in a particular territory: if you make it outside of it you have to change its name or you will be prosecuted for fraud.
The funniest example of this logic is the focaccia di Recco, a reknowned cheese flat bread that can only be produced, according to a local trust (Consorzio Focaccia di Recco), in Recco, Sori, Camogli and Avegno (four villages with a total 20,000 inhabitants). In 2015, during the World Expo, the trust made the focaccia di Recco in Milan and got fined for fraud, with its flat breads confiscated.
This kind of claims should be illegal: all producers should have the right to call their food by its own name, as it has always been.
We are going to explain our reasons taking into account the Champagne, possibly the father of all these food hoaxes.
A Charmat method sparkling wine from Champagne is not Champagne, as well as a still wine from Champagne. In fact, “Champagne” doesn’t mean “wine from Champagne”, but “wine made in a particular way”.
And this particular way is the traditional method: wine is fermented a second time in its own bottle and not in a tank or in a previous bottle, in contrast to the less expensive Charmat and transfer methods.
«The method that makes Champagne are actually two different methods: if you follow it in Champagne it is the Champenoise method, if you follow it anywhere else it is the traditional method».
This is nonsense, like saying that a French press coffee is a French press coffee only if it is brewed in France: if you brew it in Belgium it is a press pot coffee (since Belgians can’t have the same mastery of a French bartender).
«If you make a traditional method sparkling wine in Champagne you are making Champagne, if you make the very same wine anywhere else you can’t call it Champagne, because it’s fake».
This is nonsense, like saying that French wine should not be called wine because it’s fake, since wine was invented in Georgia more than ten thousand years ago. French “wine” should be called “fermented grape juice”, not wine.
In fact, Georgian wine producers don’t prosecute foreigners calling their wine “wine” simply because they don’t have enough power. The Champagne Committee instead is a powerful trust backed up by the European Union whose purpose is eliminating legitimate competitors and providing its members a positional income from their monopoly of Champagne.
The slogan “Champagne is from Champagne” is also deceptive for consumers. In fact, many bottles from the Champagne that are sold as “Champagne” are not actually Champagne, but they are inferior quality products, made with the less expensive transfer method. This is the case for all “Champagne” bottles over three litres and under 375 ml, that the Champagne Committee has agreed that are not convenient to produce with the traditional method.
Virtuous and enterprising winemakers all over the world – in France, in the USA, in New Zealand… – that follow the traditional method should not be oppressed by a French trust and should be free to call proudly their wine by its real name: Champagne. Imposing to call it “traditional method sparkling wine” is just as if a Middle Eastern trust imposed to bakers all over the world to call their bread “baked dough”, since the original one is only from the Fertile Crescent, where a tradition dating back to the Mesolithic and the perfect microclimate met to create the only real bread.
«These arguments are solid in principle, but actually Champagne from Champagne is the best».
Yes, probably the best Champagne in the world nowadays is from Champagne, but we are not sure it will always be the case: only when it will be recognized to the Alsatians, the Spanish and the Argentinians the right to call Champagne their Champagne we will know if Champagne is actually the most suited region to produce Champagne.
If you think you are the fastest runner in the world you should not be afraid of running in the same conditions of your competitors. Only a fair competition can finally test for the best Champagne regions, as it happened – and is still happeing – to wine.
Only through the FIFA World Cup we know if the English, that invented football, are the best at playing it.
It is not a map drawn by a trust that makes Champagne, but the earth and man, and we should never restrain the creative power of neither of them. Maybe in the 22th century the most prized Champagne will be from a remote valley in China discovered by an ingenious winemaker. We should humbly let him work and the earth talk.
«Champagne was invented in the Champagne: their intellectual property should be protected».
Let’s assume that the members of the Champagne Committee are the real inventors of the traditional method (and not that they have copied it from the real inventors, which is more likely). Even in this case their monopoly would be illegitimate.
In fact, the purpose of intellectual property protection is stimulating innovation by benefiting innovators. This is not the case with Champagne: you are not benefiting the inventors (i.e. 17th century Champenois winemakers), since you don’t have any influence on the dead. You are just penalizing modern innovators and benefiting an immobilistic trust.
Il Vento d'Oriente 