French winemakers’ wines in his motherland are illegal

The winemaker Maxime Chapoutier would be arrested if he tried to sell his two latest wines in his motherland France.

“In France, these wines may cause anger, which will be a good thing,” he said. “Sometimes you need to take the initiative to promote change.”

These two bottles of wine, a bottle of white wine and a bottle of red wine are illegal in France because they are mixed with French and Australian wine.

According to French and EU laws, wines containing EU and non -EU fruits are prohibited. Especially in France, the authorities attach great importance to such things.

The French wine industry has a well -known word called “local”, which is suitable for all environmental factors that affect the growth of vineyards, such as soil, climate and altitude. Therefore, wines from specific origin are respected.

Adding a strict production area name or classification system to the French wine area, mixing France and Australian wines to create global mixed wines will shock many French wine enthusiasts.

However, Maxim did this, and all of them attributed to one word -Brexit.

Although he cannot sell these two wines in the European Union, he can sell in the UK because London no longer needs to comply with the rules of food and beverage developed by Brussels.

Maxime cooperates with British online retailers The Wine Society to produce these wines, which are called Hemispheres Red and Hemispheres White. Red wine is made from Sira grapes (referred to as a Laizi in Australia), and white wine is mixed with Mashan and Vionig grape varieties.

The Australian red wine and white wine ingredients were transported to Britain in batches, and mixed with wines in the Rona Valley and Lusi Yong region in northern France before bottle.

Maxime works at Chapoutier, the famous Rhone Valley Wine Company, his family. He said that although he respects France’s importance to the local terroir, global mixed wines should also have room for sales.

“Chapoutier has a history of more than 200 years, and pays great attention to the local factors and biological power,” he said. “But more and more people no longer buy French wine because they do not understand the complicated regional rules.

“We need to adapt to consumers and make wine easier to obtain. International mixed wines can help to do this. Perhaps EU law will change. It is also more environmentally friendly to transport wine from Australia to Europe because you don’t have all glass bottles.”

Another wine company that now produces wine by combining grapes from the two continents is Australian company Penfolds. It sells red wines made by Australia and California grapes, as well as red wines made by other mixed Australia and French grapes. Similarly, they cannot be sold in the European Union, but they can be sold in Britain, the United States, Australia and other places.

Pangfu calls these hybrid wines “the wine of the world” and says they “have a uniqueness that can be described as the most secular.” No matter what it means.

It is not surprising that some more traditional winemakers do not agree with this development. German independent winemaker Jas Swan is one of them.

Although the two continents of Chapoutier and Penfolds are carefully brewed with high -quality grapes and priced accordingly, she is worried that if this trend develops, it will mean more cheap, low -level wines.

“I believe that these types of wine will not leave any traces of the territory even before leaving their mainland,” she said. “These wines only need machine processing, and add a large amount of additives to keep them clean and be made into easy public drinking.

“Why can’t consumers make higher requirements? Consumerism is too crazy.”

Peter Richards, the top qualifications of the global wine industry -Master of Wine (MW), also sneered at this. “I think the idea of ​​allocating wine for transnational national is not shocking,” he said. “I am even more worried that this is to create novelty for novelty.”

His wife, Susie Barrie, is also a wine master. She added: “I still believe that the wines made by grapes from different countries will be great in taste.”

In contrast, wine writer Jamie Gude said that the development of two continents “is actually a very interesting idea.”

“If the wine is excellent and produces a high -quality vineyard, it is not just a gimmick that mixes cheap bulk wines and then earns huge profits on the wine, then this will be very interesting.

“The basic foundation of high -quality wine is the concept of territory -wine comes from a place, and their flavor expresses this place in a unique way. But not all wines must be local wines. Such wines have space.

“In some ways, mixing suitable wines together and creating interesting things from different places requires a lot of skills.”

Pierre Mansour, director of the Wine Society, said that as part of the 150th anniversary celebration of the company’s establishment, he and his colleagues came up with the idea of ​​brewing two wines from grapes from different continents. Essence

“We are thinking about the future of wine, and we want to make some innovations. Finally, we think that an area of ​​innovation is mixed, creating a wine that can reduce the impact of climate change on a specific country.

“From the perspective of carbon footprints, it is more environmentally friendly to transport wine from Australia to Britain. But at the same time, we do predict that ‘local scientists’ will say ‘to persist and fundamentally violate the principle of France’.” Wine ” Essence

“So we found Chapoutier, thinking that they might say” Are you crazy, how dare you insult us’, but they are great. They are really enthusiastic. “