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Comment by creshal | Hacker News Reader

> German brewers protect their reputations with Reinheitsgebot, a series of purity laws first drawn up 500 years ago, and Champagne makers prohibit most vineyards outside their turf from using the name.

This is codified in EU law as Protected Designation of Origin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_indications_and_t...

Parmesan is protected by it, as are lots of other cheeses. Parmesan-alikes are sold under different names to avoid lawsuits (leading to interesting brand names like "Rapesan" here in Austria).

It's surprising the USA does not have similar laws.

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This isn't about protectionist actions in favor of established industries but adulterated food products and false labeling about ingredients, problems that are more important to the public than geographic origin.

> This isn't about protectionist actions in favor of established industries

Thank you, Tea Party.

> but adulterated food products and false labeling about ingredients

Which is also regulated for PDO products and the biggest reason why it exists in the first place. Why is nobody in the US enforcing labelling rules similarly?

So Italian cheesemakers could never sell adulterated cheeses? Let's be realistic here.

Just like how Italian extra virgin olive oil is never fake.

The US doesn't participate in the protection of geographical names because it reduces competitiveness of local industries. For better or worse, these names have become generic, a wine maker can't be expected to write "a bubbly wine made in the style of the champagne region, made from grapes bred in the region", you just write champagne on the bottle and don't export to the EU.

Also, most of our placenamed foods are not really transportable: New York pizza, Boston cream pie, philly cheese steak, etc.

There is a common, generic alternative word for champagne: "Sparkling wine", so your example is really far-fetched.

Meanwhile, several alternatives have had success with their own name, such as Cava.

Sparkling wine might not have been made with the champagne method, and some people think that's important.

Cava uses the champagne method; prosecco uses Metodo Martinotti. Some wines just use injected carbon dioxide.

> For better or worse, these names have become generic, a wine maker can't be expected to write "a bubbly wine made in the style of the champagne region, made from grapes bred in the region", you just write champagne on the bottle and don't export to the EU.

IME, most US-produced bottles of sparkling wine that is informally referred to as "champagne" are not, in fact, labeled as champagne. (They are often labeled with terms associated with -- even if not exclusively so -- Champagne-style sparkling wines, such as cuvee or blanc de noirs or brut.)

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