What's the difference???

[Thomas]

If you dig deeper in the subject of varietal labeling as opposed to place names you will likely discover that the American wine industry came to the conclusion to use varietal labeling as a means to distinguish "low-level" wines from "high-level."

In other words, Americans (which still are not the world's largest per-capita wine consumers--not even close) were deeply invested in the names of European places because that is where we were led to believe the best wines came from; a few decades ago there was truth in that belief. But as West Coast producers of the nineteen sixties and seventies began to prove that better wines were also produced domestically, they had to separate themselves from the domestic products that ruled the wine world at the time: California chablis, burgundy, rhine wine, et al.

In addition, our appellation system under the BATF does not have much teeth (with regard to place-name regulation and production stringency). Back then, naming the wines Napa or Sonoma would have made no impact on the consumer just as sure as naming them after the producers, most of which were unknown.

And so, they opted for varietal labeling.



[This message has been edited by foodie (edited 02-14-2003).]