I’m sure most of our readers are too young to remember a time when it was rare to find a bottle of wine labeled Chardonnay. The California wine industry only really discovered Chardonnay sometime in the past 50 years. In 1965, when Jack and Jamie Davies purchased the old Schramsberg winery on Diamond Mountain, near Calistoga in the northern Napa Valley, they had to scramble to find enough Chardonnay for their first few vintages of sparkling wine.
At the time, varietal designations for California wine were not the norm. The majority of white and red wines produced domestically were labeled either “”Chablis”” or “”Burgundy.”” Mostly they were field blends. The whites typically included a good splash of Riesling (more widely planted than Chardonnay by a country mile) and the reds often had generous percentages of Zinfandel and Petite Sirah.
Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, the white and red grape varieties used in Chablis and red Burgundy, respectively? Hardly.
The French were understandably miffed at California vintners for usurping historical place names to describe wines that in no way resembled those produced in the genuine place of origin. Gallo’s Hearty Burgundy might have been a fine drink, but it wasn’t made from Pinot Noir and it certainly wasn’t Burgundy, or anything like Burgundy.
This has been a gripe of European wine producers for some time, but now there’s a law on the books that forbids U.S. producers from using historical place names such as Chablis, Chianti, Bordeaux, Champagne, Port and the like. This overdue legislation has been a long time in coming, though it falls short in one important respect. U.S. wineries that have been using European place names on their labels may continue to do so. The law only prevents “”new”” violations.
Still, it’s progress. And I suppose some things will never change. I know with absolute certainty, for example, that if I serve friends an Iron Horse or Mumm Napa or Gloria Ferrer sparkling wine over the holidays, someone, maybe even everyone, is going to thank me for breaking out the “”Champagne.””
I’m sorry, but I don’t think there’s any law that covers that!
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