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It's a big gray area for me. What if someone followed the traditional methods and ingredients of real feta, made the best feta cheese you ever tasted in your l

It's a big gray area for me. What if someone followed the traditional methods and ingredients of real feta, made the best feta cheese you ever tasted in your life, BUT it was not made in Greece. Should that be allowed to call itself feta? I am against monopolies generally, and this geographical indicator stuff around products that have existed for centuries (Champagne, Bordeaux, Bourbon, Parmesan, Chablis, etc) rubs me the wrong way. It's granting a small region a monopoly on a descriptive word that everyone uses to describe the product, with no indication of quality anyways. What if Diamonds had to come from Russia or else they were not allowed to be called diamonds? Or if sugar had to come from America or else it had to be called something else? Confusion would reign. Its unfair competition, really.

Xylakant 14y ago
Bad examples: * Champagne is a sparkling wine made with a specific method from a specific kind of grapes grown on a specific soil in a specific climate. You can reproduce the method elsewhere and use the same grapes, but you can't reproduce the soil or the climate. Hence, the end-result is different. It's a sparkling wine and there are a lot of sparkling wines that are equal or better than a mediocre champagne, but they're still champagne. * Bordeaux is nothing more than a regional specifier. It encompasses the climate and the soil found there. It neither indicates quality nor taste - though many people associate it with both due to some of the best wines being produced there. What would any consumer win if all of a sudden wine produced in Berlin could be labeled "Bordeaux" - the one person winning here would be the seller. Is that fair? * Cheese is even harder. Roquefort derives much of its taste and character from the microclimate found in the caves around the town of Roquefort. Something similar is true for Parmesan: Each cheese labeled as parmesan must be made by a specific recipe and is checked by a local authority. So I guess you could make the same product and ship it to Parma and have it certified - but would that be worth it? Neither of the words is a descriptive word such as "Diamond" or "Sugar". The descriptive words in your cases are "Sparkling Wine", "Red Wine", "Whisky", "Hard Cheese". It's a brand name, like iPhone is Apples particular type of smartphone and Nexus Googles type. All in all: What would the consumers gain if all of a sudden all blue cheese was roquefort and all hard cheese parmesan, all red wine Bordeaux, all whisky Bourbon and all sparkling wine Champagne? Pretty much nothing. (*) Sidenote: Wiener Schnitzel must be veal in germany. If it's made from pork it's "Schnitzel Wiener Art". Now, that's stupid.

Xylakant 14y ago

Bad examples: * Champagne is a sparkling wine made with a specific method from a specific kind of grapes grown on a specific soil in a specific climate. You can reproduce the method elsewhere and use the same grapes, but you can't reproduce the soil or the climate. Hence, the end-result is different. It's a sparkling wine and there are a lot of sparkling wines that are equal or better than a mediocre champagne, but they're still champagne. * Bordeaux is nothing more than a regional specifier. It encompasses the climate and the soil found there. It neither indicates quality nor taste - though many people associate it with both due to some of the best wines being produced there. What would any consumer win if all of a sudden wine produced in Berlin could be labeled "Bordeaux" - the one person winning here would be the seller. Is that fair? * Cheese is even harder. Roquefort derives much of its taste and character from the microclimate found in the caves around the town of Roquefort. Something similar is true for Parmesan: Each cheese labeled as parmesan must be made by a specific recipe and is checked by a local authority. So I guess you could make the same product and ship it to Parma and have it certified - but would that be worth it? Neither of the words is a descriptive word such as "Diamond" or "Sugar". The descriptive words in your cases are "Sparkling Wine", "Red Wine", "Whisky", "Hard Cheese". It's a brand name, like iPhone is Apples particular type of smartphone and Nexus Googles type. All in all: What would the consumers gain if all of a sudden all blue cheese was roquefort and all hard cheese parmesan, all red wine Bordeaux, all whisky Bourbon and all sparkling wine Champagne? Pretty much nothing. (*) Sidenote: Wiener Schnitzel must be veal in germany. If it's made from pork it's "Schnitzel Wiener Art". Now, that's stupid.