Slashdot Mirror
Australia Adopts EU's Geographical Indicator System For Wine
onreserve writes with an excerpt from a site dedicated to laws affecting wine: "[L]ast week, Australia signed an agreement with the European Union to comply with the geographical indicator (GI) system of the EU. The new agreement replaces an agreement signed in 1994 between the two wine powers and protects eleven of the EU drink labels and 112 of the Australian GI's. Specifically, this means that many of the wine products produced in Australia that were previously labeled according to European names, such as sherry and tokay, will no longer be labeled under these names. Wine producers in Australia will have three years to 'phase out' the use of such names on labels. Australian labels that will be discontinued include amontillado, Auslese, burgundy, chablis, champagne, claret, marsala, moselle, port, and sherry."
Because reading the words "Produced in Australia" is too difficult for us Europeans?
Why doesn't the EUSSR do something useful, like getting out of people's lives, instead of coming up with more and more ways to interfere?
Take Nobody's Word For It.
Except it is.
I don't exactly understand what this law is supposed to protect.
No, in fact I do know what this law is supposed to protect. You buy Tokay and you know that's from a very narrow strip of land(30 km wide) somewhere in Europe. Hungary, I'd venture. What is that supposed to tell you? Quality? Tradition? I still remember the wine scandals of the 80ies, 90ies and whatever you are supposed to call the 2000s. Tradition and location doesn't rule out fraud and criminal food poisoning, but it has a pretty colour.
You see, a couple of colonials nicked a few plants and put them into Californian soil. They had the guts to improve the wine making process in a way even the French couldn't keep their eyes shut to. The Gallo brothers did more for wine than the whole of Europe did for a couple of centuries.
The name should apply to the process, to the quality, the ingredients and not the people who spray DDT on anything that might ruin their profit margins.
Pity California and Australia and South Africa(Shiraz!!!111eleven) have to struggle so much to put themselves on the map. I don't trust all those Chateaeux Le Snoot, Saint Emilion and generic French Le Label any more than your lawyer.
Luckily I live at the banks of the Rhine and I have plenty to choose from when I buy locally.
News for nerds? Only thing more nerdy than wine is collecting stamps and having a favourite operating system(which, as we all know, would be OS/2).
20 minutes into the future
These laws aren't there to help consumers.
They're there to help the artisan vintners, cheesemakers and other food manufacturers. It's to prevent the giant companies spotting a product is becoming popular and make their own version for half the price (and a quarter the quality) and giving it the same name. I promise you that real Parmesan bears absolutely no resemblance to the bits removed from a verruca scraper that are put in tubs and used to be sold as Parmesan but are now usually called italian-style hard cheese.
Usually the law surrounding these "can't be named X" not only demands that the product is made in a particular area, but also that it's made in a particular fashion.
(FWIW, I think Cheddar should be given AOC status. But I live in Somerset so I would say that ;).
No, you're wrong. Named after != name derived from. It's not the same fucking word, you stupid wog. Can't you see the "o" on the end, you greasy anchovy chomper?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
In the time of Alexander and Phillip (forget the number), Greece used to be part of Macedonia - not the other way round. Because that lad & dad sure knew how to kick ass.
So I reckon the bankrupt, ouzo-quaffing, sponge-off-the-Germans layabouts should just shut the fuck up. Because the only time they've amounted to more than shit was under the wing of Macedon. Once their empire split into the Seleucids and all the rest they got their asses kicked in short order by, for shame, the Eye-fucking-talians.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."