16/10/2026
In Europe, some food and drink carries the name of a place, and the law protects it.
Ch*****ne can only come from Ch*****ne, and the name protects everyone who makes it there and everyone who buys it.
I live in a medieval town in Slovakia, and I understood only slowly what that kind of name really is. It is a brand that nobody owns alone. The baker, the winemaker and the cheesemaker from the same area are co-owners of it. If one of them is careless, they all pay for it. If one of them is excellent, they are all paid a little.
I think it changes how people behave. They know that the neighbour’s work reflects on theirs, so they talk to each other, compare, sometimes argue, and the standard slowly goes up.
You do not need a protected name to use this. Any maker can put a place on the label - the hill, the street, the workshop - and say who is standing behind the product. A place gives the customer somebody to trust, and it gives you neighbours you answer to.
I wonder who your neighbours are.