geocorn
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I found this information posted by Tim Vandergrift on another forum and I thought it might be usefull. I will include it in the next newsletter:
If you’ve been looking at the kit shelves you’ll have noticed something funny. Not funny ha-ha either. Some of the kits have weird names. In fact, some of them have names that sound French, or maybe Italian, but don’t actually mean anything in either language. Also, the wacky names don’t seem to have a commercial equivalent. It isn’t like you can go into your local bottle shop and ask for a Vieux Chateau du Roi (possible translation: Roy’s Old House. Or maybe it has something to do with watery cats . . .)
Not all of the kits are oddly named. Chardonnay, Cabernet, Merlot and the other grape varieties are all there, but there are a significant number of tongue-twisters.
So what are wine kit manufacturers up to? Is it a horn-swoggle? The answer, like most complicated issues, involves lawyers. At the dawn of the modern wine kit (the 1980’s) manufacturers had a problem with consumer acceptance. People wanted to feel sure that the kits they were buying were like the wine they could purchase from the store. So, in order to guide people who wouldn’t know Cabernet from Cab Calloway, they produced kits that not only replicated commercially available styles, they gave them the proper names of those styles. People felt a lot better about buying wines with names like ‘Bordeaux’ or Chateau Neuf du Pape, or Chablis, knowing what they were getting.
Then came the French, and the INAO (Institute Nationalee d'Appellation d'Origine). They launched a court action claiming that terms such as Burgundy, or Beaujolais were copyrighted under French law, and that no Canadian manufacturer could use them. While kit manufacturers probably weren’t hurting the French wine industry, they had a point (they also won in court . . .)
In order to keep continuity in their product lines, the manufacturers and the CHWTA (Canadian Home Wine Trades Association) got together, and with input from the kit making public, renamed the products. Some of the names carried over well enough (like Vieux Chateau du Roi for Chateau Neuf du Pape) while others fell a little short in terms of easy recognition (Chat Dormant: who wants to buy a wine with a sleepy cat in it?). In some cases, the names were odd enough to doom the kits (Pommard was a fabulous wine, rich and delicious. Renaming it after a sleepy cat scratched off the production line-up for most manufacturers).
What follows is a list of the old names, and the new INAO approved ones:
CHWTA Trade-Marks and the names the replace
Old Names Trademarked Replacement
Anjou Anjille
Beaujolais Bergamais
Burgundy (Bourgogne) Bourgeron
Entre-Deux-Mers Brise-de-Mers
Pomerol Cavignac
Chablis Chamblaise
Pommard Chat Dormant
Claret Clairval
Domaine Minervois Clos Minier
Cotes-du-Rhone Coteau Royal
Medoc Coteau Sur Mer
Brouilly Domaine des Brumes
Alsace Blanc Fleur De Blanc
St. Emilion Jermillon
Hermitage L'Alsy
Tavel La Flutee
Muscadet Manoir Blanc
Pouilly Fuisse Ruisseau Blanc
Moulin a Vent Tourne-Vent
Graves Val-de-Grace
Macon Val-du-Domaine
Chateau Neuf du Pape Vieux Chateau du Roi
Bordeaux Bordailles
Cotes de Provence Vin de Taradeau
Although it’s easy to poke fun at some of the name choices, but other efforts would no doubt sound worse. But in the aftermath of this change, the manufacturers began using proprietary, copyrighted names for their new kit formulations. By doing so, they were able to achieve several objectives simultaneously. One, they had a stable name that the French couldn’t make them change. Two, they got the chance to apply cool-sounding names to their wines. Third, they got to market specifically against those names (when he’s advertising Cabernet, a marketing wonk worries that he’s advertising everybody’s Cabernet, but if it’s copyrighted, Chateau Spelunk is his alone).
The first of these were kit wines were formulated to match the Italian Amarone-style, which is made from partially raisined grapes (a primitive way of making concentrate, no less). They were given Italian-sounding names that had a little more zing: Luna Rossa, etc. There are now quite a few of these proprietary products. In fact, there are too many to list here. Your best bet is to have a look at the Vintage brochure provided by your retailer, which will give you the best link-up for the style.
If you’ve been looking at the kit shelves you’ll have noticed something funny. Not funny ha-ha either. Some of the kits have weird names. In fact, some of them have names that sound French, or maybe Italian, but don’t actually mean anything in either language. Also, the wacky names don’t seem to have a commercial equivalent. It isn’t like you can go into your local bottle shop and ask for a Vieux Chateau du Roi (possible translation: Roy’s Old House. Or maybe it has something to do with watery cats . . .)
Not all of the kits are oddly named. Chardonnay, Cabernet, Merlot and the other grape varieties are all there, but there are a significant number of tongue-twisters.
So what are wine kit manufacturers up to? Is it a horn-swoggle? The answer, like most complicated issues, involves lawyers. At the dawn of the modern wine kit (the 1980’s) manufacturers had a problem with consumer acceptance. People wanted to feel sure that the kits they were buying were like the wine they could purchase from the store. So, in order to guide people who wouldn’t know Cabernet from Cab Calloway, they produced kits that not only replicated commercially available styles, they gave them the proper names of those styles. People felt a lot better about buying wines with names like ‘Bordeaux’ or Chateau Neuf du Pape, or Chablis, knowing what they were getting.
Then came the French, and the INAO (Institute Nationalee d'Appellation d'Origine). They launched a court action claiming that terms such as Burgundy, or Beaujolais were copyrighted under French law, and that no Canadian manufacturer could use them. While kit manufacturers probably weren’t hurting the French wine industry, they had a point (they also won in court . . .)
In order to keep continuity in their product lines, the manufacturers and the CHWTA (Canadian Home Wine Trades Association) got together, and with input from the kit making public, renamed the products. Some of the names carried over well enough (like Vieux Chateau du Roi for Chateau Neuf du Pape) while others fell a little short in terms of easy recognition (Chat Dormant: who wants to buy a wine with a sleepy cat in it?). In some cases, the names were odd enough to doom the kits (Pommard was a fabulous wine, rich and delicious. Renaming it after a sleepy cat scratched off the production line-up for most manufacturers).
What follows is a list of the old names, and the new INAO approved ones:
CHWTA Trade-Marks and the names the replace
Old Names Trademarked Replacement
Anjou Anjille
Beaujolais Bergamais
Burgundy (Bourgogne) Bourgeron
Entre-Deux-Mers Brise-de-Mers
Pomerol Cavignac
Chablis Chamblaise
Pommard Chat Dormant
Claret Clairval
Domaine Minervois Clos Minier
Cotes-du-Rhone Coteau Royal
Medoc Coteau Sur Mer
Brouilly Domaine des Brumes
Alsace Blanc Fleur De Blanc
St. Emilion Jermillon
Hermitage L'Alsy
Tavel La Flutee
Muscadet Manoir Blanc
Pouilly Fuisse Ruisseau Blanc
Moulin a Vent Tourne-Vent
Graves Val-de-Grace
Macon Val-du-Domaine
Chateau Neuf du Pape Vieux Chateau du Roi
Bordeaux Bordailles
Cotes de Provence Vin de Taradeau
Although it’s easy to poke fun at some of the name choices, but other efforts would no doubt sound worse. But in the aftermath of this change, the manufacturers began using proprietary, copyrighted names for their new kit formulations. By doing so, they were able to achieve several objectives simultaneously. One, they had a stable name that the French couldn’t make them change. Two, they got the chance to apply cool-sounding names to their wines. Third, they got to market specifically against those names (when he’s advertising Cabernet, a marketing wonk worries that he’s advertising everybody’s Cabernet, but if it’s copyrighted, Chateau Spelunk is his alone).
The first of these were kit wines were formulated to match the Italian Amarone-style, which is made from partially raisined grapes (a primitive way of making concentrate, no less). They were given Italian-sounding names that had a little more zing: Luna Rossa, etc. There are now quite a few of these proprietary products. In fact, there are too many to list here. Your best bet is to have a look at the Vintage brochure provided by your retailer, which will give you the best link-up for the style.
