Success, everyone knows, can be cause of immense satisfaction as well as the
cause of many risks and unpleasing events. One of the risks that can more
frequently happen is the emulation and the copy of the thing or event which is
having lots of success. This is something very common for almost every human
activity - in particular the ones that are capable of providing economic
profits - which are usually emulated by the ones having no talent and are not
capable to do better but copying the work of others, most of the times in a
deplorable and arguable way, in order to conceal the lack of ideas with a
disputable slyness. What could not be done in order to be successful! Then if
this success is the result of other's work, this is not something to be
concerned of, the most important thing is to look like what one certainly is
not - and will never be - while trying hard to hide what one is for real as
well as clearly realizing there is nothing original and personal to offer.
This phenomenon, like everyone knows and clearly sees, also involves the wine
world and it is often heard about acts of enopiracy against renowned and
typical products. Despite the obvious considerations about the morality and
questionability of events like those, sad to admit, often favored by weak and too
much permissive laws, it is natural to ask the reason why certain acts are
permitted and not prevented. In the world of wine, these robberies of
identities are not just about the name of a specific product, they also involve
names of regions, areas and typical terms. The confusion, detrimental for
consumers as well as for the products themselves, is impressive. Of course it
certainly is not the name itself that can ensure quality, this is a production
concept - as well as of honesty and seriousness - which goes far beyond the
simple words used for the identification of a product.
Even the great and famous English writer William Shakespeare, in its stupendous
work Romeo and Juliet, reminds us - with the words of the romantic Juliet -
that a name, after all, does not have any mean and that a rose, even though it
could be called with any other name, it would always and however have its sweet
aroma. True. It certainly and undoubtedly is true. It is an invitation to the
ones who are usually tempted by appearance to consider things in a more
attentive and less uncaring way. But this is also true provided it is known how
a real rose looks or smells like because, in that case, it could also be
possible to recognize it. In case a false rose would be offered to
someone who never saw or smelt a real one, as well as supposing this false rose
has an unpleasing smell, the credibility of every rose would be severely
compromised. For the unlucky individual, not knowing the real facts, all roses
would have an unpleasing smell and, according to his or her experience, he or
she would also be right.
In case a name is being used for the identification of a specific product - and
therefore also a wine - having proper and specific characteristics, typical and
recognizable, it is good to work in order to the safeguarding of those names
and to avoid abuses and, above all, dishonest speculation for consumers.
Moreover, the safeguarding of names - and therefore the products which are
usually called with those names - is essential in order to keep and favoring a
credible and correct culture, in particular in those cases where typicality
of a territory, including traditional and environmental factors, contribute to
make a product unique in its kind. This must be done for wine as well by
adopting proper legal and cultural measures. A case that can be cited as an
example and happened many years ago, is about Champagne and Cognac. Because of
the huge worldwide success of these two products, there have been many
producers who tried to use these names for their similar products - and
certainly different for quality - in order to take advantage from the
opportunity offered by the name. Now, and rightly, the names Champagne and
Cognac can be used exclusively and only for identifying the two famous French
products and exclusively coming from their historical production areas. A very
good result that should be applied - and safeguarded - more frequently.
Champagne is - and must be - that wine which is produced in the homonymous
French region only. It is a matter of correctness, honesty and seriousness,
first of all for consumers and, last but not the least, for those producers
that work hard in order to keep high and credible the quality of their
products, of their lands and their traditions, as well as their cultures.
After all, it is truly necessary abusing the name of certain wines or other
products? The world where we live in is, fortunately, vast and extraordinarily
rich in resources that can make unique every place of the earth. In this sense,
wine offers excellent examples, in particular thanks to the many producers who
believed in the possibilities offered by the lands and that were successful in
taking advantage from the local opportunities, therefore creating genuine
enological masterpieces. This is something happened in every wine producing
country, both in the Old World and in the New World, therefore
confirming that it is enough to observe and understand what one has available
in order to create something unique, great, unrepeatable and - last but not the
least - unreproducible somewhere else and in case it is reproducible somewhere
else, it will certainly be different. Fortunately. This is a good hope for
everyone who believes in intelligence and in the richness of diversities. It
would be very boring - and sad - to know there is just one and only one wine,
similar and replicable everywhere. What a sadness it would be! Tasted one wine,
all the others would become known.
It is an immense satisfaction to know it is not like that. However it is also
true it is necessary to spread a proper and correct culture in order to
safeguard the historical and traditional interests of certain products and of
their names. We believe, in this sense, the right culture and knowledge can
make a lot in the interest - first of all - of consumers. It is not enough to
safeguard a name in order to ensure a good result: it is also necessary to
spread a constructive and effective culture that can allow consumers to
recognize a good product, and therefore a wine, from a bad one, no mater the
name. A name is important to identify something and to make it clearly
identifiable among a group of individuals who make use of the same language to
communicate. This is the ultimate mean and role of a name, and like was rightly
suggested by Shakespeare, it certainly cannot be a name responsible of the
smell of a rose. Anyway as we humans make use of names to identify things, in a
world which already is too rich of confusion, it would be nice that at least by
using names things could be recognized without any misunderstanding. Then, in
case what we find in a glass is not what we expected to have, it is not name's
fault, indeed the fault is of the one who wanted to call that thing with that
name.
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