Ukraine Champagne
Monday, February 28th, 2011One of the mainstays of a romantic evening here in Ukraine, is the ubiquitous Odessa Champagne. Tasty (at least the dry version is to my liking) and inexpensive, it is popular, even with those whom can afford the more expensive bubbly from the “Champagne” region of France.
They say that “imitation is the highest form of flattery,” though it seems the EU…the French in particular…have a hard on for regulations on food items. We had heard about the desire of European bureaucracy to standardize what was acceptable, even the shapes and sizes of bananas allowed to be imported into the EU (sexual connotations permitted!), and while most can understand the degree of national pride that a place like “Champagne” or “Cognac” can invoke, the names themselves have transcended national boundaries. If the French were to make borscht or pelmeni, or even hamburgers…and call them such, there would be few objections, only comparisons with the “original.” This is already the case with vodka, which is claimed by Russians, Ukrainians, Poles and others, but made in dozens of countries…and still referred to as vodka.
I recall a tasting I once attended years ago in Yerevan, Armenia. The hostess for this event-at Ararat, a former Armenian and then Soviet enterprise that still produces some of the best “Cognac” in the world, informed us that the French company Pernod, had just purchased this company. She explained that when executives recently came from France to taste the some of the 20 year old vintage quietly aging in oak casks, several of them mentioned that this was better than anything they had in the Cognac region of France, and reaffirmed their decision to buy the company. Interestingly, Ararat had won the right to call their brandy, “cognac style wine,” 100 years earlier when their drink impressed judges in a Paris Exhibition.
Perhaps the French and others should be happy that quality products produced elsewhere, use the current names. As the article below notes, renaming products could make them equally if not more famous when they are judged by quality, and could wind up supplanting the original in the hearts and on the tables of consumers. For me, that is certainly the case. 10 year old Ararat is my favorite drink, and I would not even think of paying all that extra money for the stuff produced in France.
Monday, 28 February 2011
Ukrainian winemakers will be forced to stop labelling their sparkling white wines as “Champagne” as part of a free trade agreement with the European Union due to be signed later this year. The head of the EU delegation to the country said last week that the issue is a “non-negotiable” part of the deal, which is expected to come into force in 2013.
Since Soviet times, the vineyards in the southern Crimea region of Ukraine have produced a syrupy sweet sparkling white wine, which is known as shampanskoye. It is often unpalatably sweet for Western European tastes, but is very popular in Ukraine and Russia.
From next year, however, producers will have to come up with another way to describe it. “Alternative names must be adopted,” said José Manuel Pinto Teixeira, the head of the EU mission in Ukraine, last week.
There are nearly 3,000 food and drink products which must be made in a particular area for the name to be used in the EU, including Parma ham, Roquefort cheese, and – as of last week – the Cornish Pasty. But in Ukraine, there are a whole range of products, first marketed in the Soviet era, that copy Western names. Aside from shampanskoye there are also the brandies known as konyak and sweet red wines called Madeira, not to mention local cheese brands marketed as Feta. All of them would fall foul of the EU’s rules.
“I don’t know what they should call shampanskoye but I have an idea for Ukrainian Madeira,” said Mr Teixeira. “The wines are produced in a place called Massandra. Why not call them Massandra wines, and who knows, maybe in a few years from now, tourists will travel to Massandra especially to drink the wines.”
Mr Teixeira said that Spain is an excellent example to Ukraine that rebranding products can work. When the country joined the EU, they were forced to rename “Spanish champagne” as Cava. “Now everybody knows what Cava is,” he said.
The trade deal with Ukraine, which both sides want to sign later this year, will ease trade barriers and bring the former Soviet state a step closer towards eventual EU membership. The branding issue has been one of the hardest for the Ukrainians to accept, said Mr Teixeira. Government ministers have now accepted that it is the end of the road for shampanskoye, but other Ukrainians are not convinced.
“I haven’t heard about this, but I can’t imagine anyone is going to stop calling it shampanskoye,” said Marina, a cashier at a Kiev supermarket.
(from www.independent.co.uk)
