[jbovlaste] Re: fu'ivla for liquors

[Craig Daniel <teucer@pobox.com>]

On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 10:19 AM, Alan Post <alanpost@sunflowerriver.org> wrote:
>
> I broadly agree that we should stick to the strict definitions.  I'm
> curious *why* the strict definitions refer to products from specific
> areas of France, and whether that reason is sufficient to carry into
> a fu'ivla.

Because that is how French wines are normally named. Champagne comes
from Champagne, Burgundy from Burgundy, Bordeaux from Bordeaux. Back
before grapes of all sorts could be readily grown anywhere, you named
a wine by the style, and the styles took their names from their native
regions; now it's been legislated in the EU that it should stay thus.
The US does not have such legislation in force, so if you make a
Champagne style sparkling wine in California you can call it Champagne
(though the better wineries refuse to do so, out of respect for
France; ironically, therefore, despite the prestige of the Champagne
name a "sparkling white wine" from Napa is probably better than a
"Champagne" from the same region) but if you make one in Spain you
call it "Champagne-style sparkling wine." (Actually, you probably
instead call it "Cava," a Spanish style very similar in many ways to
Champagne, but you get the idea. Similarly, most examples of Saumur -
a traditional French style from, well, guess what town - meet every
part of the legal definition of Champagne except for the grapes being
grown in the wrong part of the country; the wineries that make it are
far too proud of the local product to try to compare it to something
from elsewhere, though.)