This Swiss village lost the right to its name because of champagne Riots and injuries – it’s already New Year’s Eve in Berlin

The corks will soon be popping: the Swiss never drink as much champagne as they do at the turn of the year. 6.4 million bottles of sparkling wine are imported into the country every year. They all come from the Champagne wine region, which covers 34,300 hectares in the north of France.

The ‘Swiss’ Champagne is in a different league: a Vaudois village with 1,000 inhabitants that zooms past just before Yverdon on the A5. Here, 25 hectares of vineyards produce mainly red and white wine.

The French region and the village of Vaud are united not only by the name and love of wine, but also by a 25-year dispute that ended this year.

Swissair as profiteer

The origins of the Champagne(r) dispute lie in the first bilateral agreements between Switzerland and the EU. The negotiations were concluded in 1998 and resulted in the free movement of people. Other contract contents are much less known. The use of the name “Champagne” is prohibited for Vaud wines – bottles may not be sold as wine from Champagne. The French champagne producers had successfully lobbied for this. In exchange for the EU concession, Switzerland was given easier access to European airspace for Swissair.

“We were sacrificed for the Swissair business,” says Albert Banderet (74) a quarter of a century later in his home in Champagne. To add smugly: “Swissair still went bankrupt. We, on the other hand, still produce wine.” Banderet himself owned vines and was mayor of Champagne when Bilateral I was founded. Since then, he has orchestrated the resistance of the ‘Champagnoux’, as the residents of the place are called.

In the beginning, economic fears dominated: wine growers feared an annual loss of 1.2 million francs. Over time, this was put into perspective and became more and more a matter of principle, says Banderet. “It is an injustice that Champagne is the only Swiss wine-growing community that is not allowed to sell its wines under its name. We didn’t call ourselves Champagne because French sparkling wines sell well!” In fact, the Latin place name Campania and the existence of vines in the village of Vaud are already mentioned in a document from 885.

Fought in Bern and Brussels

The community’s wine growers left no stone unturned: they objected to the bilateral agreements in Luxembourg in 2002 – without success. They lived in federal Bern. And in 2015 they traveled to the EU Commission in Brussels, which could not help because the municipality of Champagne did not have a protected label. The Vaud government wanted to change this in 2021: it included the Controlled Designation of Origin (AOC) “Commune de Champagne” in the cantonal wine regulations. The French sparkling wine producers are opposed to this. The Constitutional Court of Vaud ruled in their favor based on the bilateral treaties. The canton, the municipality and the wine growers have rejected their appeal to the Federal Court.

The wine growers’ association, chaired by Albert Banderet, decided in February 2023 not to submit the case to the European Court of Human Rights – the judicial recovery had already cost 110,000 francs.

The younger generation in particular wants to look ahead. “You have to use your energy where it makes the most sense,” says winemaker Marie-Florence Perdrix, 54, from the neighboring village of Giez, who owns vines in Champagne. For them, the priority is to sell wines from the entire Bonvillars region. This works well even without the label “Champagne” on the label.

There is still an argument going on

However, peace has not yet returned to the community of a thousand souls. The city’s only wine cellar is within sight of France’s sparkling wine empire. Owner Eric Schopfer says it is the second time this year that he has received a letter from lawyers accusing him of unlawfully using the protected name ‘Champagne’. The reason: his wine cellar is called “Le Champagnoux”. This has been the case for 19 years, says Schopfer. In his answer he gave the French a choice: either he kept the name. Or instead of “Le Champagnoux” he prints his address with the zip code “1424 Champagne” in large letters on the label. He hasn’t heard anything since.

Whether this is legally allowed is questionable. But Schopfer isn’t worried. “Any judge would laugh at the non-existent competition between me and the French champagne producers.” The Vaudois sells 3,500 bottles of sparkling wine and 25,000 bottles of normal wine annually.

According to him, the ‘ridiculous’ behavior of the French does not stop him from drinking a glass of champagne every now and then. “On New Year’s Eve we often toast with both French sparkling wine and mine, to compare them and have a laugh,” says Schopfer.

Not everyone in the city sees this so calmly. “I would never bring champagne to a party,” says an elderly person in the village center. A woman says that her family usually toasts with wines from the region; at most, French Clairette is an option. The saleswoman in the city’s only supermarket confirms the impression: the champagne is doing anything but well. The approximately 15 different champagne bottles from the range seem out of place here in Champagne. (aargauerzeitung.ch)