   |  Chateau CrustyMarch 19, 2009 at 12:10 am by john
One of the better and most established wine blogs out there (est. 1994) is the one written by Alder Yarrow who posted a pretty amazing report a few days ago you probably haven't heard about. Now, growing up with a box of wine in the fridge labelled "Chablis", I always assumed that it was just another kind of wine or "Daddy's Happy Juice." But later in life when I began to appreciate wine, I began to understand why the French were really pissed off that we threw around their centuries old hallowed parcels of land as mere marketing terms for sugary wine (fyi - we're slowly but surely pulling my Dad away from the dark side). Grand Cru Chablis is about as good as white wine can get on our lovely earth and there it is printed on a box just to sound French. Add to this the fact that our wine industry also stole "Champagne" and "Burgundy" and it definitely adds up to something pretty egregious. But as of last week, Europe seems to be fighting back. If the following terms are on a wine label, that wine can not legally be imported or sold in Europe any longer: chateau classic clos cream crusted/crusting fine late bottled vintage noble ruby superior sur lie tawny vintage vintage character
Now let's list the wineries this will effect just by winery name: Chateau Montelena Chateau St. Jean Chateau Souverein Chateau Sinnet Chateau Potelle Clos Pegase Clos du Bois Clos du Val Clos LaChance Clos Pepe
Perhaps this is a hangover from the "Freedom Fries" days in '02 or as Alder suggests, "a bit of sneaky revenge against Chateau Montelena thirty years after the fact". Many of these terms should be protected but "Chateau"? Chateau means "estate". Are Mexico and Spain going to ban "Casa"? "Vintage"??? This all just really sucks because we were about to bottle and export our first wine called "Chateau Crusty - A Classic Ruby Vintage Superior to Cream" Guess that one is going down the drain. Bummer. Leave a comment  Anonymous said:This is too far... I wonder how Charteau Cos D'Estournel feels about this now that they own Montelena! March 21, 2009 4:05 PM |
And here I thought the French were open, friendly, easy to get along with, etc., etc..
March 20, 2009 2:56 PM