Ian wrote on Sat, 12 Jan 2008 19:31:54 +0100:

>>>Clipping<<<<

??>> However, finding the pompous indignation of the French a
??>> bit irritating, I think I am going to continue to use and
??>> drink bottle-fermented "California Champagne", especially
??>> given the extension of the Champagne district boundaries
??>> (did they or did they not reach Algeria?)

IH> Whether you - personally - like the way in which Europe
IH> seeks to protect the consumer against passing off by
IH> unscrupulous counterfeiters,

>>> CLipping<<<<<

IH> sympathy with the position of Champagne manufacturers,
IH> were most of their wine to be half way decent. It isn't,
IH> any more than is most sparkling wine in California or Spain
IH> or anywhere else. Sturgeon's law applies to as much to wine
IH> as it does to most other things, in my view. The fact that
IH> a wine IS legally Champagne or IS legally Port, doesn't
IH> guarantee that it be good, merely that it comes from where
IH> it purports to come from.

I wonder if "unscrupulous counterfeiters" includes the makers
of poor "real champagne"? :-)

I don't suppose there is any hope of a "Judgement of Paris" for
sparkling wine.



James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

E-mail, with obvious alterations:
not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not