Why champagne sorbet might be illegal in Europe
THE POWERFUL trade association that represents champagne makers has sued bloggers, water bottlers and haute couture fashion brands. They warned Apple against calling the gold iPhone “champagne” and spent three years making sure that no one but French producers could snag champagne-related wine URLs.
But last Thursday the Comité Interprofessionnel du vin de Champagne scored an even more significant victory, when Europe’s highest court suggested in a non-binding ruling that even products containing the French sparkling wine may not be able to use the name “champagne.”
The opinion from the European Court of Justice - on a product sold by the discount grocer Aldi as “Champagne sorbet” - reinforces and expands the reach of European Union laws that dictate that only Portuguese dessert wine can be called “port,” and that only the British-made blue cheese can be called “Stilton.”
While the opinion is not final, experts say it furthers the Champagne region’s effort to protect its brand.
“Champagne is fighting this battle in Europe, and they seem to be winning,” said Bernard O’Connor, a managing partner at the European law firm Nctm who specialises in trade and agriculture law. “It seems logical that they’ll next take the fight to global markets.”
The case in question involved “Champagne sorbet,” which Aldi sold at a number of its German stores in 2012. The dessert contained 12 per cent champagne - the real kind, from France - but the Comité Champagne claimed the use of the protected name on a non-wine product risked cheapening it.
Under long-standing European law, hundreds of traditional foods, wines and spirits that are closely linked to a specific region enjoy special protections:
They’re granted exclusive use of the regional product name, and legally guarded against a range of infringements.
Stilton cheese must be produced in the counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire or Nottinghamshire in Britain, using pasteurised local milk. ( It cannot, ironically, be made in the nearby town of Stilton.) Port specifically describes a fortified wine produced in Portugal’s Douro Valley. Feta, Manchego, Roquefort and Asiago must come from Greece, Spain, France and Italy, respectively.
Even indirect or passing uses of protected names are illegal, in many instances.
Food producers cannot “misuse, evoke or imitate” a protected name, which has been interpreted in several national and EU-level cases to mean that they can’t use it to label, advertise or draw a comparison to other products.
In other words, Miller High Life - the “champagne of beers” - would not fly in Europe.
In this case, however, the product contained the ingredient: It was 12 per cent champagne. Aldi - which has long since stopped selling the dessert in question - has argued that its product couldn’t possibly be said to exploit the champagne brand or mislead consumers.
“Aldi and Galana invoked the right to use a correct and nonmisleading trade denomination,” a lawyer for Galana, the sorbet manufacturer, said in a 2014 statement. “According to the defendants, the use of ‘Champagne’ for a sorbet containing Champagne was justified.” — WP-Bloomberg