Update: What Calistoga means to Champagne

After my post yesterday suggesting that a new US wine law might make "California Champagne" illegal, I had input from two players: Korbel director of winemaking Paul Ahvenainen and Sam Heitner, director of the US Office of Champagne.

Not surprisingly, they don't agree on exactly what last week's TTB ruling means.

A recap: Calistoga Cellars will have to change its brand name on wines that do not include at least 85% grapes from Calistoga. It will not be grandfathered in, and this will apply in the future to any wineries with geographic terms in their names, should those places become official American Viticultural Areas.

One thing that won't happen is what I speculated yesterday, that Korbel will immediately have to stop calling its wine "California Champagne." Ahvenainen pointed out that Champagne is not a wine region in the United States, and the ruling at present only applies to US wine regions.

But while the US won Korbel's right to continue misleading consumers in trade talks with the European Union in 2005, that concession isn't necessarily going to be the law forever, Heitner said.

Heitner said that, in theory, the 2005 agreement came after the first round of talks that are supposed to have a second round. In fact, Heitner said the sides were supposed to reconvene within 90 days, though apparently that didn't happen.

"In theory, the EU and the US are continuing to talk about this," Heitner said.

Protecting Champagne, along with Burgundy, Port, Chablis and other wine regions whose names are used as brand names in the US, may not be high priority for the EU, but it's not an issue that's going away. And the positions of some of the US players have changed since 2005.

Most of the California wine industry, along with several members of Congress, lined up against Calistoga Cellars in support of the new TTB regulation. It's hard for me to see those folks turning around and strongly supporting Korbel (and Constellation, which makes Cook's) for doing exactly the same thing Calistoga Cellars was doing -- implying that its wine is made some place that it's not.

Heitner pointed out that as recently as 20 years ago, few Americans cared about this sort of law. The growth in power of the US wine industry, and the growing interest among American consumers in wine, has changed that.

"We're very impressed with the great strides the US wine industry has made in the last 20 years," Heitner says. "The protection of the Calistoga AVA is the latest in a series of steps that shows that the US wine industry cares where the wine comes from. I don't think there's any other country in the world that has made as many great steps in the last 20 years. At the same time, it would behoove the US to recognize worldwide regions such as Champagne and Port and others. The United States has a loophole that allows the misuse of Champagne on wines from California. But that is directly in conflict with the majority of other countries in the world."

A major part of Korbel's argument, as made by Ahvenainen, is that "champagne" no longer means a place, but has become a generic word, like Kleenex or Frisbee. That would be fine if growers in Champagne agreed, but they don't. The company that has been telling people for decades that Champagne isn't a place now says its argument is correct because people believe it. I'm always amused when people use the ignorance of the American public as an argument, but just because many people think aliens live among us or President Obama is a Muslim born in Africa doesn't make it so.

The question is, will France, the EU or the Office of Champagne approach the TTB and try to get the Calistoga ruling applied to European wine regions? "We continuously communicate with the TTB about multiple issues," is all that Heitner would say.

"The idea that there are Calistogas and Paso Robles -- at the end of the day, this is something the US embraces, that wine comes from a place," Heitner said.