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Comment by dantheman | Hacker News Reader

Just put where it's manufactured on the label - that's really all that matters.

That is literally what Champagne is: the name of a place in France.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champagne_(province)

That's disingenuous. If I buy a wine labelled "Champagne" I expect a dry sparkling wine, not a random red wine from a certain region in France. It is used to indicate product type, not origin.

You can't buy red wine with the name champagne, that's a silly notion. I expect champagne to match not only the wine type, but also quality requirements, specific production methods, grape types, and yes also area of production.

That's exactly the point I was making, a different variety of wine wouldn't be champagne. And it would behoof you to note the order of matching you yourself presented. Area of production comes last.

Just wait until the Germans join the fun, with Hamburg having the copyright on Hamburgers and Frankfurt on Frankfurters.

It's both. It's like Idaho potatoes, you expect some type of potato but also some geographic origin. When the product type is also a location you can't easily untangle either.

Yeah, I know. But when we say Champagne, we clearly mean sparking wine of a certain style -- not the location.

No one is confused, and if people really care where it's made they can look at the label. This is just trying to use the force of law to limit competition and favor incumbents. They want to claim something is a trademark that isn't.

> Yeah, I know. But when we say Champagne, we clearly mean sparking wine of a certain style -- not the location.

Actually yes, when we talk about Champagne we DO talk of the location too, because the land has a specific soil which impacts the final taste. Even in France we have tons of different sparkling white wines which are not champagne, no big deal. But champagne is champagne, not any sparkling wine.

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