Name calling: should a sparkler from Nebraska be christened Champagne or a sweet wine from Kansas be considered Port? Why our labeling laws are illogical, archaic and wrong.
Where Are You Originally From?
The latitude of eastern Long Island corresponds to wine producing areas in Portugal, Spain and Italy. Our Atlantic maritime climate may be compared in some ways to Bordeaux and the Loire Valley. Does this mean our wines ought to imitate their best wines? The answer of course is no, in spite of comparisons I sometimes hear. Imagining a Long Island Medoc or a North Fork Sancerre, or a Hamptons Rioja merely dumbs down the exciting world of wine. While winemakers should look for models and sources of inspiration, in the end they must make wine that reflects their own time and place.
Every vineyard region is distinct from others. The word “terroir” is often used to describe the sum of the things that make it singular, and it is a good one word description. It is elusive however in that people use it in different ways. I think we are better off just accepting the idea that each place has its own unique agricultural qualities and its own potential for growing wine grapes. As a result, a regional name or appellation carries a message, telling us something—not everything, but something—about the characteristics of a wine.
I began thinking about all this when I recently received an expensively produced promotional package of materials from the Center for Wine Origins. Its theme was “Location Matters” and it asked “Where does your wine come from?”
Partly financed by the European Union, and based in Washington DC, the Center for Wine Origins aims at educating consumers, policymakers and the media about the importance of location and about protecting geographic names. It is not an altruistic effort. The group represents Champagne, in France, and Porto (Port) and Jerez (Sherry) in Spain. The names of these three European wine producing regions are consistently and legally used in a generic way in this country. The organization has a point, and is correct in fighting back. Obviously not every sparkling wine is Champagne, and not every sweet fortified wine is Port, and the variety of authentic dry to sweet Sherries has no equal.
So why in this country, unlike Mexico, Canada and most other wine importing countries, do we allow this misuse? I think it is more inertia than intention. It seems to be embedded in old, outdated laws governing alcoholic beverages that, for example, permit sparkling wine from Nebraska to be called Champagne and fortified wine from Kansas to be called Sherry or Port. In a globalized marketplace, and with a workable system of appellations in every important wine producing country, including the United States, these aspects of our labeling laws seem archaic. Maybe it did not matter even a few years ago, but we are now a major wine consuming country.
Yet you might argue that if similar places can produce similar wines, is it not easier for the consumer if the name of the best known region is used for identification. The problem there is that something similar is hardly the same as the authentic wine. The terminology would over time simplify wine choices to a useless point, and we would eventually lose regional distinctions entirely. In a reductio ad absurdum, we would eventually come down to “Red or white, Madame?”
I am quite optimistic about the future of Long Island wines. For the bottles we buy now, the name of the winery and the grape varietal (or description of the blend) are good indicators of what to expect. I hope that one day the North Fork and Hamptons appellations will also connote to consumers a particular style, the way many Old World appellations do. Thankfully, there is no need for Long Island to co-opt anyone else’s name, and no motivation to do so. In the meantime I wish the Center for Wine Origins good luck in their effort to clean up a small part of this confusing situation.
