“Of course, we respect local restrictions around the word ‘champagne,’ but we remain proud of Miller High Life, its nickname and its Milwaukee, Wisconsin provenance,” the statement continued. “We invite our friends in Europe to the U.S. any time to toast the High Life together.”
You can just hear the clenched teeth through which this was uttered.
I’m generally very much in favour of the EU’s protections of local specialities (even if I think there are better sparkling wines than champagne). But this decision is linguistically suspect. They’re not claiming that their beer is champagne. Only that it is as good as champagne. If anything, being used as a point of comparison like that only raises champagne’s status as a premium drink (regardless of whether Miller High Life is actually any good or not).
I suppose a point could be made that the cans were supposed to be sold in Germany, where the average consumer might not be able to distinguish these subtleties in foreign language ad copy.
