Posted on 09/24/2012 11:44:41 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
The US has angered vineyard owners across France with a plan to sell some of its wines in the European Union with a "chateau" or "clos" label.
"What is at stake is the respect for tradition and quality," Laurent Gapenne of Chateau de Laville and president of the Federation des Grand Vins de Bordeaux told the Associated Press.
For American vintners it is a question of selling more wine in their top export market, unshackled by historic language or restrictive terms in the world of 21st century globalization.
"People use words in different ways," WineAmerica chief operation officer Cary Greene told the AP, arguing there should be no ban on US bottles carrying the word "chateau".
The French, on the other hand, argue that hundreds of years of craft are at stake. They're worried that the cachet a mention of "chateau" or "clos" - which shows the origin of the wine - carries is diluted if other winemakers started to stick it on their bottles in Europe.
On Tuesday, EU experts from the different member states will investigate whether that should be permitted, with a decision imminent.
"I cannot understand that they would yield on this," Gapenne said, setting high stakes for the latest skirmish in a trans-Atlantic wine war that has seen the US growing from upstart to an increasingly confident competitor on world markets.
US founding father Thomas Jefferson was enamored with French wines and the French held dominance over world wine traffic until well after Second World War. Then came the 1976 "Judgment of Paris", when, to French astonishment, California won major blind taste tests over French wines. To this day, that event is considered the "tasting that changed the wine world".
That never sat well with the French, and since then wine
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Anything that tees the French off is all to the good...
Just what France needs: more competition.
Chateau de obama 2012 = soured on vine.
I’m not a wine connoiseur, but I know what I like, and to me, most French wines are not worth the price they charge. California wines are good, most are exceptional for the price. But I find Australian and Chilean wines superb
Strip away the labels and you can pretty much be agreeable with a $6 a bottle German wine against a $30 bottle of French wine. Same is true with cheap Italian wine. My wife bought an entire case of South African wine, which I have to admit is pretty good stuff...but a bit pricey.
Italian wine -- haven't really tasted except for the Cinzano type herbed wines (which I don't like).
S. African -- you are correct
Both have old-time mimeograph labels that read 'RIPPLE'.
I mean, how could you go wrong..... it's the Drink of Choice for three quarters of Chicago's 9-million residents.
Plus, it's highly recommended by Chicago's South and West Side store-front churches. When it's time for communion, they just pass around a couple of brown bags.
If you can find it, try a German labeled auslese trocken. You might be surprised.
Suck it up France. American wine is better.
thanks — I will :)
Château or chateau: a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor or a country house of nobility or gentry.
Apparently, it doesn’t take much to get the French POed. Wonder if they would riot if a short movie about this was posted on youtube? You know, one of those bumps in a road between U.S. and French relations.
Ping
Then came the revelation a year or two later than many of the French chateaus were blending Algerian wine and slapping their finest labels on the bottles. There was an immediate interest in California wines on the east coast, distribution improved, and the rest is history.
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