What’s in a Name?Prosecco, that delightful varietal sparkling wine from the foothills of central Veneto, has been so successful everyone wants in on the action. From the flatter country of the eastern Veneto, to Sicily and even Chili, opportunists are cashing in on Prosecco’s success. With production climbing, quality declining and prices slipping, the original producers of Conegliano-Valdobbiadene have been forced to re-define who they are and the wine they make, based on place. They have learned the hard way that you can’t protect a wine brand based on a varietal, it is too broad an approach. Using the example of Pinot Grigio, they understand this perfectly well. Wine is not like vodka; wine is associated with where it is grown, place matters. Isn’t that a familiar refrain. You can labor to brand a varietal, even brand a style, but over the long run you can’t protect the result. With consumer preference determined more and more by focus groups, style shifts with the market, with exchange rates, recessions and new technologies run-a-muck. Land on the other hand, is codified under its geographical place name. A wine maker is a property owner first and foremost. This is the cold fact that makes the romantics in the wine trade uncomfortable. It is the real estate the children will inherit, not just a label. Land is fixed to soil and climate, culture and tradition, law and politics. As champagne has taught all of us, this is what you fight for, something the Yves Saint Laurent Co. learned when they were successfully sued in 1993 by the champenois. Champagne is not a perfume, it is a place, you can find it on a map of France and if you are fortunate enough, you can visit. Conegliano Valdobiadene (Prosecco Superiore) DOCG, is now the forty-fourth Denominazione di Origine Controllata Garantita region in Italy and the most recent addition to this certification. In upgrading to the highest standard for Italian wine, the original hill producers of Prosecco are fighting to reclaim their wine and their reputations. It is not without considerable risk.In the wine trade, it is well understood that European appellation systems are not a guarantee of quality. The hierarchal classifications forcefully imply quality, but all too often there is an obvious price to quality disconnect. Until very recently appellations were only broadly associated with an ecological framework for terroir. A prime example would be the classifications of Bordeaux which are based on property boundaries and not on soil types. Yes, there are a few high profile exceptions, but they don’t make the rule. For this reason, and others, it is very difficult for the consumer to taste the difference among the Cru tiers. The recent influence of biodynamic and integrated farm management (IFM) is revitalizing French wines, which are storming back. Often times, we North Americans misunderstand the context for the French concept. As Amy B. Trubeck, author of “The Taste Of Place: A Cultural Journey Into Terroir”, reminds us, in France terroir is, first and foremost, a cultural sensibility. Appellation systems are complex, messy affairs steeped in law and politics, dependant on property rights, regulations, taxation, oversight and compliance. They are difficult to regulate and every stipulation has a dozen loopholes. Consider, for example the following as outlined by Jamie Goode in his web site www.wineanorack.com Opinion: Appellations as brands. “Many producers prune for the maximum permitted yield, and then in a high-yielding year they just leave the excess fruit un-picked. This makes a mockery of the appellations regulations. If you produce 90hl/ha and only pick 40hl/ha, you’ve still got 90hl/ha quality grapes.” So why have the vineyard owners and wine-makers of Valdobbiadene Conegliano even bothered? De-limiting your wine-making area makes it easier to regulate the common. Ultimately it comes down to trust, trust in your neighbor to honor the guidelines as collectively agreed.The best appellation agreements are those that are driven by the landowners themselves, as they usually are in Italy, rather than those that are imposed from the outside by government, large co-operatives, or transnationals. They work best when based on a common purpose. The wine-makers of Conegliano Valdodiadene share a common purpose, to marry the wine they make to where they live, to marry quality to shared ecology, and to improve quality based, in part, on lower yields. This is the hard route and to their credit this is the route they have taken. What we are provided with, in Conegliano Valdobiadene’s bold shift to DOCG status is an ideal context in which to learn about appellation systems, a living case study if you will. The changes, which are well underway, the first wines were released this spring, provide us with an opportunity to track the effectiveness of the system. Will the quality of their Prosecco actually improve? Or will the only changes be the addition of the new DOCG logo to the label. I trust that the landowners and winemakers of Valdobiadene Conegliano will succeed in their quest for a higher standard. But while I trust them, I also intend to verify. I have bought some of the older DOC vintages and I will open them alongside the newer bottles sporting the pink strip and we will taste for ourselves. And what fun that will be.
