Big Mistake

[ladysail2]

Wine made from the grapes grown in the Champagne region of France is the only wine allowed to be called 'Champagne'. Sometimes it is fermented a second time to produce the bubbles...hence....sparkling wine-champagne, and sometimes it's a still wine...Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, for example.

Other grapes can be fermented twice to produce a sparkling wine, but it is not Champagne.

We often shortcut the definitions and call any sparkling wine...champagne...but it's not necessarily true. A sparkling wine from California or Southern Ontario could never be a 'champagne'.....even though that's what we might say.

That's your wine lesson for today...:D

And if anyone is wondering what my 'point' is.......well, it's just that one doesn't have to be disappointed for not receiving Champagne.....when there are many very enjoyable sparkling, and still, wines to be had.

[karonius]

I am not a champagne drinker and traded my bottle at the MDR for the house wine. :)

 

Were you able to then drink it in the MDR without paying the corkage fee?

[spindrift]

Yes, we always exchange the Champagne for wine and we are not charged for corkage for ship wine. Have done it on all of 9 O cruises. They are very good about that.

[A Knitter]

Were you able to then drink it in the MDR without paying the corkage fee?

 

 

Yes, as spindrift stated, the staff is very accomodating with the exchange. I like Chardonnay and the bottle they trade for the Champagne is a dinner wine but it is tolerable:D

[orchestrapal]

Were you able to then drink it in the MDR without paying the corkage fee?

 

Yes, you can bring it to any dining venue any night and exchange it for a cold bottle, no fee.:)

[winegirl]

I don't recall the brand in our concierge cabin but it was definitely French, not California sparkling, Prosecco or Cava. Actually that surprised me given Oceania is a US based company.

 

Wines we bought on shore, and we bought some really nice ones for US$ 20 or less using guidance from local wine merchants, were served in the dining room subject to $ 20 corkage fee. Wines purchased or provided by the ship were served without corkage fee. They will store your opened bottle for the next evening and do not charge corkage a second time.

 

We enjoyed a lot of nice local wines that way, and even with corkage, they were bargains. There was no attitude from the servers about doing this either.

[billie5]

I sure hope people are properly skeptical of what they read on the internet, especially anything addressing legal issues. One thing is certain: not one of the posts on this thread gives correct information as to what is, and is not, champagne. There have been threads largely devoted to this. It is, of course, a legal matter.

 

There is now an agreement in place between the governments of France and the U.S. Without going into details (which you can discover yourself with a little research), some wine produced in the U.S. can be labeled champagne, while most of the sparkling wine can not. The agreement was a compromise which allowed for some grandfathering of certain U.S. producers. The result has produced one oddity: the best "champagne-like" U.S. produced wine can not be labeled champagne, while the wine which can is not all that great!

 

Bill

[ladysail2]

I sure hope people are properly skeptical of what they read on the internet, especially anything addressing legal issues. One thing is certain: not one of the posts on this thread gives correct information as to what is, and is not, champagne. There have been threads largely devoted to this. It is, of course, a legal matter.

 

There is now an agreement in place between the governments of France and the U.S. Without going into details (which you can discover yourself with a little research), some wine produced in the U.S. can be labeled champagne, while most of the sparkling wine can not. The agreement was a compromise which allowed for some grandfathering of certain U.S. producers. The result has produced one oddity: the best "champagne-like" U.S. produced wine can not be labeled champagne, while the wine which can is not all that great!

 

Bill

 

Bill....I don't think anyone wants to get into the legal issues of Champagne.....the rules regarding naming wines changed because everyone and his dog who were making sparkling wine were calling it 'champagne'. So, the French wine industry pulled in the reins and made a law regarding the naming of wines depending on where the grapes are grown.

California has a special license to call some wines 'champagne' only with the agreement of the French gov't/wine industry. All sorts of pride, predjudice, snobbery, money....and a multitude of other emotions all entered into the decisions as well.

There's alot of misconception about what constitutes 'champagne'.....I was just trying to scratch the surface of the explanation. :D

[billie5]

You are right, Ladysail. It was entirely a political decision. The French would have liked to insist that Champagne designation should be possible only from the Champagne region of France, but they lost (in a preliminary stage) a World Trade Organization case against the U.S. and Australia, and rather than take a chance of losing altogether, decided that a compromise with the U.S. was safer. Never did find out what they did with the Aussies.

 

Bill

[ladysail2]

Bill.....it's always interesting how these situations come about. I remember at work (in the Fed Gov't) when they clamped down on us for using the term.....'xeroxing' when making copies, etc. We had to say 'photocopy'.....Xerox is a trademarked name, not a verb....:p We had such a hard time remembering to use the correct terminology.....but we persevered.....but I guess we're getting way OT.....LOL

Thanks for your information.

Joyce :D

[Mura]

Coming in here late to the game but I thought I'd say that we have often brought our bottle of champagne to the table in the GDR and shared it with our companions. (Or perhaps we had a "date" in Polo or Toscana and did the same.)

 

We did exchange it for a bottle of wine on our last cruise -- it had never occurred to us that we could do so before. We probably lost a little on the "exchange" ... but not very much and it was easily handled.

 

And no, no corkage fee.