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I largely agree with this, the entire thing seems like a backhanded way of creating monopolies for yourself by making it impossible to make the product outside of pretty substantial limitations, and often from a very small region. If you can only use the label “Provel Cheese” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provel_cheese) if the product is made in St. Louis from local cheddar, Swiss and provolone cheeses milked from Missouri cows, then I’ve effectively created a set of conditions so difficult to meet that it’s nearly guaranteed to be made by only a handful of companies who are then free to manipulate the price as they please. If I only require that any such provel that doesn’t meet that strict definition be labeled to note that (made in Wisconsin, perhaps, or from cows in Idaho, or whatever) then it’s not deceptive and if there’s no actual quality difference between a provel made traditionally in St Louis from Missouri milk, and a cheaper but non traditional provel, then th3 public is smart enough to make that decision.
It's worthwhile creating these categories and monopolies because that's what creates the value worth imitating in the first place. Most of what gets sold in the US as "champagne" is not the genuine article, doesn't come from Champagne, and isn't strictly speaking the highest caliber. But people buy it anyways. And if there was no protection in Europe over what Champagne meant, and anyone could contribute a definition, there would be nothing worth ripping off.
But if the average consumer is not really seeing a difference between “real Champagne” from the right region of France made with the proper grapes by traditional methods and a California knockoff, then the value is basically marketing, people aren’t necessarily choosing the product for anything intrinsic to the wine, they’re buying a brand, and probably believe in the product because of the price and the legend of French wines especially champagne.
I suspect this is true of most such products— if I gave a blind taste test between the “real” version of the product and one that doesn’t meet the label standards I question whether the average person can really tell the difference. A lot of the perception of quality is based in expectation based on reputation, cost and marketing.
So I think it’s still basically a monopoly situation, aimed less at protecting the public and more about protecting European monopolies.
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