Illegal Product Labels

EU Label of Origin Rules

Jan 13, 2008 Daniel Workman

European Union trade lawyers consider imported wines labelled as Champagne illegal if they are made outside of France's Champagne region.

Most countries require that imports have a conspicuous label that identifies the product’s country of origin.

European Union (EU) international trade laws are much stricter about the wording found on imported product labels.

EU authorities routinely confiscate imports with labels showing protected words like Champagne, Parma Ham and Danish Blue cheese if the imported products originate in countries other than France, Italy and Denmark respectively.

Counterfeit Champagne Labels

EU trade lawyers argue that when countries other than France print the term Champagne on bottles for export, they are using protected label-of-origin terminology to counterfeit real French Champagne.

Recently, Belgian customs authorities in the port of Antwerp confiscated a shipment of 3,288 bottles labelled "California Champagne" and "André Champagne Cellars". All 3,288 mislabelled bottles destined for Nigeria were destroyed.

Belgium custom officials have intercepted many shipments with illegal product labels. This includes sparkling wine identified as "Shampagne" from Ethopia and "Champana" from Argentina.

Protected EU Product Labels

EU labelling laws also safeguard hundreds of other food and drink products such as British ales, German sausages and nine varieties of Portuguese honey. In addition, a Parma Ham label can only be affixed to exported pork products made from Italian pigs that come from the province of Parma (located in the Emilia-Romagna region of north-central Italy). Likewise, imported Danish Blue cheese must originate from Denmark.

Product Label Trade Laws Tested

The power of EU trade law to dictate non-trademarked wording on product labels from non-EU countries is debatable. The obvious question is: if wine companies around the world can produce and sell products labelled as Champagne in their home markets, why do those exact same labels make the bottled products illegal when they are exported?

After all, many dictionaries including dictionary.com define Champagne as:

• a sparkling, dry, white table wine from the region of Champagne in France, or
• a similar sparkling wine produced elsewhere.

Most consumers don’t think that California Champagne is counterfeit. Generally, drinkers don’t assume that Champagne is the sole product of France – much less the term Champagne on a bottle’s label.

The only scenario where the EU can enforce its counterfeit label laws is when its customs officials inspect a shipment with illegally labelled products.

Foreign companies that export directly to non-EU countries would appear to be out of range for European international trade laws.

Brazilian Custom Product Labels

The world’s top trading website, Alibaba.com, lists wine exporting companies like Peterlongo from Brazil. Peterlongo advertises itself as Brazil’s champagne pioneer.

A word of advice to Peterlongo and similar wine producers: if the company plans to export Brazilian champagne to European Union countries, it must make sure that the product label doesn’t include the term Champagne in English (or Champanhe in Portuguese). Instead, the exporter should print up custom product labels that say sparkling wine (or vinho espumante).

References

This article presents independent insights based on the Toronto Star article ‘Illegally labelled bubbly popped’ by Alexandra Stadnyk of the Associated Press (January 11, 2008).

The copyright of the article Illegal Product Labels in International Trade is owned by Daniel Workman. Permission to republish Illegal Product Labels in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Korbel Champagne label is illegal if exported