Why Drink Names Are About To Get Confusing

If you like drinking fortified wines, you’re going to be in for a rude shock at the bottleshop soon. Under a newly-signed export deal with Europe, Australian producers will no longer be able to sell drinks described as “port” or “sherry”, since those descriptions are now reserved for the originals from the relevant European regions. A similar change has been taking place with champagne for some years, but that’s relatively easily recognised when described as “sparkling wine”. There are also bans on the use of the descriptors “burgundy”, “moselle” and “chablis”, though these have been enforced for some years and I can’t recall seeing moselle anywhere except on tap at the local leagues club.
The two fortified drinks on the hit list pose the biggest challenge; as the Australian points out, port might be described as “vintage” (though I’d be asking “vintage what?”), while sherry has no really obvious alternate label, which might explain why a consultant has been hired to develop a new branding within the next year. (There’s a 10-year period to change the labelling for tokay, which would concern me more if I’d ever drunk the stuff.)