Thank heavens I was sitting down while perusing the large and very particular nightmare that is EU Regulation 753/2002. Not the sort of thing I’d recommend to anyone on Easter Saturday, but it does offer some scary reading. Why? Because it’s not even sufficiently veiled an attempt to even warrant the description ‘thinly’ in its efforts to hit back at the New World invasion of European wine sales by regulation and confusion. But that’s a story for another day. For several decades Hunter Valley winemaking legend Murray Tyrrell copped it in the neck for labelling his excellent Vat 47 wine as ‘Pinot Chardonnay’. Even son Bruce, who now holds the reins at Tyrrell’s, sort of admitted his father was wrong when he changed the wine’s varietal name to just ‘Chardonnay’ from the 2000 vintage. ‘I waited to change it until a certain so-and-so (my italics) who criticised us for years about this passed away’, explained this cheerful chip off the parental block. But it looks to me that he didn’t need to, for listed in Annex II of this infamous document, right adjacent to the term ‘Chardonnay’, sits ‘Pinot Chardonnay’! And for your information, the pen-pushers responsible for cribbing together Regulation 753/2002 generously offer to permit the use of this name in these countries: Argentina, Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Switzerland, Chile, Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, India, Israel, Moldavia, Mexico, New Zealand, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Tunisia, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, United States, Uruguay, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia , South Africa, Zimbabwe, Germany, France, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Austria, and gallant little Belgium! Have a happy Easter.
