Labeling "deal" reported

Wines & Vines, Jan, 2003

Wine Institute has neither confirmed nor denied a report that the United States and the European Union are prepared to "cut a deal" at a meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Cancun next September to protect names such as chablis and burgundy. Jim Clawson, CEO of JBC International, a consulting firm that works with Wine Institute, told just-drinks.com that the EU could create a deal to protect geographic names of origin by offering agricultural trade concessions in food trade talks.

"The EU does not have enough muscle" to force the U.S. to the table otherwise, said Clawson, a trade consultant since 1983. Without such trade-offs, the agreed geographical indication solution would lean more towards the voluntary register sought by New World wine producers, he said.

European producers have long sought to end the use of terms such as chablis, burgundy and champagne by U.S. and other producers.

The EU recently signed a free trade agreement with Chile that, among other things, protects the exclusive use of the names of European wine geographic labels of origin. Chilean wine producers agreed to phase out the use of such names over the next 12 years. Under the deal, the EU has also agreed to cut tariffs on Chilean wine exports to zero over the next four years from about 5% to 6% now. Chile shipped $592.5 million worth of wine exports abroad in 2001, with exports to Europe reaching $350 million.