Smash the bubbly

The war about champagne continues. New means allowed and this must be the first time the destructions of false bubbly is available on video . What a scoop! Should be spreading round the web like virus and ads for viagra. Whether it will stop people from buying American champagne is more doubtfull, isn't it?

The war is a war. One one side the winegrowers of Champagne and their white collar officials, who say that true champagne is only produced in the French region with the same name. On the other side, you find several American producers of sparklers. They claim, that champagne is just a sparkler and it can originate from everywhere where sparkling wines are produced. Such as California.

And the sunny westcoast state was the point of origin for 3.288 bottles of bubbly with destination Nigeria, Africa. Unfortunately for André Champagne Cellars Belgian customs found the bottles before, and in Belgium - in fact all over the EU - the bottles were illegal. Since within the EU you are not allowed to use geografical designations for your product, unless it actually originates from the appropriate region.

Fight for decades
The fight about the right to use the word champagne is an old one. The view of the EU is, that words like champagne, porto and Stilton cheese designate products from certain regions. Therefore they cannot be applied for products, that has been produced elsewhere. In the US the view is, that these words rather designate certain types of products. For instance champagne is a sparkling wine. The difference in definition has been discussed for decades in international trade organisations like GATT and at the moment the WTO.

And the discussions continue. The latest deal from spring 2006 ensured, that only American producers, that all along have sold their wines as champagne, can continue. But not in countries that acknowledges the geographical designations, not even as transit, as the example from Belgium clearly demonstrates.

At a press conference yesterday Bruno Paillard, one of the CIVC-presidents, said, that the customs all over Europe has destroyed more than 14.000 bottles of illegal champagne from countries like Argentina, Russia and Armenia, since the rules came into force. The CIVC is the common organisation of champagne houses and winegrowers. Amongst many duties it works with the defense of the appellation, that is the name of champagne.