Champagne can only be called Champagne if it comes from Russia.

WINE TALK
21

Al has a similar read on this as what I have been told. It is a bizarre situation, but also a bit blown out of proportion IMO. At its heart, it seems to be more about Russia vs. the older Soviet Republics that are now independent than anything else. Champagne wasn’t really the target of this, but is now caught up in the mess. In the big picture, other countries have done similar things. Canada did or maybe still does make you label Champagne (and all sparkling wines) as sparkling wine in both English and French. 1990 Dom Perignon even put it front and clear in the DP shield on the front label rather than the back. The difference was that in Canada all sparkling wines needed to state they were sparkling wines. What still isn’t clear to me is if only sparkling wine made outside of Russia needs to add sparkling wine to the back label. From what I am told, the front label of Champagne and non-Russian sparkling wines can remain as normal as long as they don’t use the term ‘Shampanskoye’ or Cyrillic characters.

If Russia would have simply stated that they were making all producers (whether from Russia or not) label their wines on the back label as still, sparkling, fortified, etc… then I don’t think this would have been a big deal. They also could have easily stated that only wines made in Russia could be labeled as Rossiskoye Shampanskoye or Shampanskoye. This would have been a non-event. Heck, we still have Korbel Champagne and plenty of other California Champagnes in the USA.

22

I think a lot of the confusion was caused by translations of early Russian language articles or the actual legal amendments. The protected term is shamponskoye (шампанское), not Champagne, but shamponskoye in those articles was translated to Champagne which would normally be the appropriate translation.

For many producers in Belarus, Moldova, etc., the law requires more than just modifying the back label because those producers have been labeling and marketing their wines as shamponskoye. I don’t think they all have used the term (because I think it required a licensing fee) but I suspect many of them have been using it. Most of the Russian public looks for shamponskoye for celebrations, the term is often even more important than a brand name. So, the Russian language news articles pointed out the very real changes that would be required without realizing the English translation would be confusing as far as Champagne.

Here’s a more recent article. Note “French producers are still allowed to use the word champagne on the front of bottles, but the use of “shampanskoye” is allowed only on local produce”. Also, “French media have suggested Moscow’s move could be part of an effort to revive the shampanskoye sparkling wine industry in its Soviet-era home of Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014”.

-Al

23