French winemaker whose faults are illegal in his home country

The winemaker Maxim Chapier will be arrested if he tries to sell two of his most wines in his native France.

“There will probably be outrage at these wines in France and that would be a good thing,” he says. “Sometimes you have to be provocative to stimulate change.”

The two bottles in question, one white and one red, would be illegal in France because they were made of a mixture of French and Australian base wines.

According to the law of the French and the European Union, it is forbidden to make wine that combines EU and out of the EU. In particular, in France, the authorities take such things very seriously.

The French wine industry has a known word called “terroir”, which is applied to all environmental factors that affect the vines growing in a vineyard, such soil, climate and elevation. As a result, the blame from a particular place is kept in the most great respect.

Add a strict name or classification system for the wine regions of France, and the thought of mixing French and Australian wine to create a global hybrid would horrify many French wine lovers.

Still, Maxim did just that and it’s all thanks to one word – Brexit.

Because while he cannot sell the two wines in the EU, he can do it in the UK now that London no longer has to follow the rules of food and drinks set by Brussels.

Maxime created wines in partnership with the UK Online Retailer The Wine Society, where they are called hemisphes Red and Hemisphesis White. The red is made of grapes of cheese or shiraz, as it is called in Australia, while white is a mixture of varieties of Marsana and Vionia.

The Australian components for red and white wine were delivered in bulk to the United Kingdom, where they were mixed with wine from the northern regions of France and Rusilon before bottling.

Maxim, who works for the famous Rhone -based wine company, say that although it respects France’s focus on a terroir, there must be room for global mixtures that are also sold.

“Chapoutiier has been making wine for more than 200 years, very terrorist, and biodynamic,” he says. “But more and more people are turning their backs on French wines because they do not understand the complex rules for appointment.

“We need to adapt to consumers and make the blame more accessible, which international mixtures can help make it. Perhaps the EU law will change. It is also more eco -friendly to send wine from Australia in Europe , since you do not have this weight on all glass bottles.

Another wine company that now makes wines by combining grapes from two continents is the Australian company Penfolds. It sells red, made of both Australian and California grapes and others who mix Australian and French. Again, they cannot be sold in the EU, but they can in the UK, USA, Australia and other places.

Penfolds calls these mixtures as “wine in the world” and says they “have a otherness that can best be described as secular.” Whatever that means.

Not surprisingly, some more traditional winemakers are not in favor of this development. One such person is Jas San, an independent wine producer with headquarters in Germany.

While the two-wheeled Chapoutiier and Penfolds mixtures are made carefully from quality grapes and accordingly the price, it is afraid that if the trend grows, it will mean much cheaper, low quality wine will be sold.

“I believe these types of wine would be left of any terroir, even before leaving their continent,” she says. “These wines would only see machine work, heavy additions to keep them clean and produced to be easy to drink for the tables.

“Why can’t consumers be more demanding? Consumerism is crazy.”

Peter Richards, who has the best qualification for global wines, the wine master (MW) is also stinking. “The idea of ​​mixing a cross-country of wine is not something that is outrageous to me in itself,” he says. “My anxiety is more that it’s about creating a novelty because of the novelty.”

His wife, Susie Barry, who is also MW, adds: “I have to convince myself that wine made by mixing grapes from different countries can be great in taste.”

In contrast, wine writer Jamie Good says that the development of wine with two continents “is actually a pretty funny idea.”

“If the wines are good and well made from the good objects of the vineyard – not just a trick, mixing together cheap bulk wines and then hit a huge margin of wine – then this is quite interesting.

“The main basis for fine wine is the concept of terroir- that the wines come from a place, and their aroma expresses this place in unique ways. But not all wines should be terror wines and there is room for guilt like this.

“In some way, there are many skills needed to mix the right wines to create something interesting, coming from so many different places.”

Pierre Mansour, the leader of buying a wine society, says that he and his colleagues have come up with the idea of ​​creating two wines made from grapes from different continents as part of the festivities of the company’s 150th birthday.

“We were thinking about the future of wine and wanted to do something innovative. In the end, we decided that an area of ​​innovation was mixed, for the creation of wine that could mitigate the impact of climate change on a particular country.

“And from a carbon footprint from the point of view, it is more environmentally friendly to send wine in bulk from Australia to the United Kingdom. But at the same time we expect the” terroinists “to say” Hold this is the basis against the French Director of Wine. “

“So, we approached Chapoutiier, thinking that they could say” Are you crazy, how dare you offend us, “but they were great. They were really enthusiastic.”