PORT… CHAMPAGNE… WHAT’S IN A NAME?

As you drive through the beautiful state of Idaho you happen upon a wonderful spot called Hidden Valley Winery. They have a breathtaking area nestled in the foot of a mountain range with a wonderful cozy tasting room. You stop in to check it out. As you peruse the wares you are struck with a feeling that something seems out of place. You look closer at a bottle of cab and realize with dismay what caused your discomfort. On the label it reads…”Hidden Valley Napa Cab. Produced and bottled by Hidden Valley Winery.” How can that be? You approach the person tending the tasting room duties and ask them if the grapes are from Napa Valley. They tell you, no they are grown in our vineyards. How can you call it Napa Valley cab you ask? They explain to you that the style is big and rich with smooth tannins which is very similar to many popular Napa cabs. You leave the winery stunned knowing that this can’t be right. However, that night before you retire at your hotel room you stop by the store and purchase a nice bottle of syrah port made by a popular local winery.

What is wrong with this picture? The thought of someone outside of Napa Valley capitalizing on that name to sell their wine horrified us. Yet, we thought nothing of the fact that a sweet wine from Idaho would frivolously be labeled port when it is not from Portugal. This is a problem that wineries in Champagne and Portugal have dealt with for a long time.

Part of the reason for this problem can be attributed to the relatively new wine culture in the United States. Although we are one of the top wine consuming nations in the world, we are still quite youthful in culture and appreciation of wine compared to many other countries such as France, Italy and Germany which are steeped in wine culture and history. France is well known for it’s strict regulations when it comes to where specific wines come from all the way down to a vineyard. It is not good enough simply to call all wines from Bordeaux, Bordeaux. Pomeral, St-Emilion, St. Julien, Margaux and Graves all carry different meaning for each wine even though they all come from the Bordeaux region, and each chateau is careful to follow the regulations put in place to protect these designations.

Port wine, that sweet libation from Portugal is also recognized by European countries as a specific region and no winery or chateau would even consider using that name on their wines. In fact, Port from Douro Portugal comes from the world’s oldest regulated and demarcated wine region dating back to 1757. So, is it fair to liberally use the name “Port” on a wine that is not from Douro Portugal in the United States?

Champagne, was one of the first regions in France to spearhead a move to stop wineries around the world from using the name “Champagne” on their sparkling wines. There are laws in place now that protect that name. Unfortunately, there is a “Grandfather” clause that allow wineries to continue to use both Champagne and Port on their labels if they had used it prior to the new law. This begs for the question, Why? Why would a winery want to use a name on a bottle of their wine that is misleading? Probably because most of the people buying the wine in our country would not even give it a second thought and, the name helps sell their wine. Port style wines face the biggest dilemma. What would they call their sweet wine so that folks would understand what they are drinking? To illustrate just how bad things can get for wine without name recognition one only has to look at a small town in Burgundy… Chablis.

Chablis has been abused to the point where most wine customers in the United States will look at you cross-eyed when you tell them that Chablis is chardonnay. You see, to them Chablis is that watered down white that comes in a big box or round 3 liter jug. Why would they pay over twenty-five dollars for a bottle of that? Just think about how sad that is. The wines from Chablis are absolutely stunning whites and represent some of the best value in chardonnay you can find. In most cases they are unoaked with a steely minerality that is unmistakably Chablis. Once you taste it, you understand. It makes me shutter every time I see the name Chablis on a five liter box. Very few if any wineries in the United States would even think about using Chablis on a bottle of their chardonnay for that reason. They would not want to kill the sales of their thirty dollar bottles by using the name Chablis, not necessarily because it is not from that region. Yes, it is all about sales! And yet, these very same wineries would fight to the bitter end to protect their own AVA or area where they grow grapes and produce wine. How long do you think the faux winery mentioned at the beginning of this article would get away with putting Napa Cab on their label?

So let’s get back to Port. I was talking with a friend of mine recently whom I have great respect for when it comes to wine knowledge, and he struggled with the argument that using Port on the label is wrong. As he said, the dessert wine labeled Port is done in a “Port” style and therefore it is not wrong to use that designation. As soon as I mentioned Champagne the bell went off. We walked over to the Champagne section and picked up a bottle of Korbel that had Champagne written across the label. There is nothing wrong with Korbel, but it is obviously NOT Champagne. Most sparkling wines put “Sparkling Wine” as the designation for their bubbles. Many times you will see “Methode Champenois” on the label which let’s us know it is made in the same manner as the wines of Champagne. Now, what should wineries call a dessert wine made like a Port?

Made like a Port. That is a statement that is hard to quantify. If you have ever seen pictures of the steep slopes and mountainous terrain of Douro, Portugal you will begin to understand what I am saying. It would be difficult if not impossible to replicate the fruit that comes from this rugged region of the world where the finest and only Port comes from. Spend just a little time trying to understand the different styles of Port such as Vintage, LBV, Ruby, Tawny, Colheita, Tawny Reserve and Ruby Reserve and I believe you will begin to appreciate the tradition and history of this region of the world. To simply stamp “Port” on a bottle of dessert wine that is similar in sweetness and style is borderline blasphemy. Right up there with putting Napa Cab on a bottle of wine produced from grapes in Idaho just because it is similar in style.

The challenge for wineries is what to call it without hurting sales. The challenge for the consumer is education and appreciation. I walked into a wine shop recently and noticed a bottle of wine simply designated “Dessert Wine”. On the back of the label the winery explained that it was made in a style similar to Port. Not a bad idea and it helped me as the consumer to understand what I was to expect when I opened the bottle. As the consumer base in the United States grows in it’s appreciation for long held traditions I believe we will see far less misuse of such names as Chablis, Champagne and Port. To help spearhead this growth in knowledge and understanding there is an organization that is educating consumers on the need to respect wine origins. Check out their website at www.wineorigins.com. As important as our family name is to us, wine regions around the world would like nothing more then to have the name of their wine protected so that the tradition and history behind that name is not lost. Yes, there IS something in a name and is up to us as consumers and wine writers to hold wineries responsible in protecting the wine regions of the world. Cheers! Stan The Wine Man.