Guided route · 5 stops

Six terroirs outside Europe

Tequila, Mezcal, Pisco, Moutai, Bourbon, Cachaça: out of seventy-two located terroirs, only six lie outside Europe. This imbalance is not a gap to hide; it is the very object of the scholarly programme to come.

Stop 01 of 05 · The frame

Six terroirs, six points

Out of seventy-two located terroirs, only six lie outside Europe, and none has an outline filed: six dotted circles. This imbalance is not the state of the world — it is the state of the corpus, and correcting it is precisely the purpose of the scholarly programme to come. The room exposes it instead of disguising it.

Subject: Tequila
Status: Geographical indication registered in the European Union
Place: Jalisco and four other states, Mexico
Precision: Indicative marker — a point, and nothing more

Stop 02 of 05 · Mexico

Tequila and mezcal, two agaves, two regimes

Two agave spirits, two statuses: tequila is a Mexican geographical indication entered in the Union register, mezcal a national appellation that the register does not carry over. Same plant, same country, two protections — the law does not follow botany.

Subject: Tequila
Status: Geographical indication registered in the European Union
Place: Jalisco and four other states, Mexico
Precision: Indicative marker — a point, and nothing more

Stop 03 of 05 · South America

Pisco and cachaça

Peruvian pisco is in the Union register; cachaça is there only as a sales denomination, defined by Brazilian law as the country's spirit made from cane juice. Its history is that of the sugar economy and of slavery — the same history the rum room documents, and one a museum has no right to pass over in silence here either.

Subject: Cachaça
Status: Regulated sales denomination, with no link to origin
Place: Brazil
Precision: Indicative marker — a point, and nothing more

Stop 04 of 05 · China

Moutai, baijiu in the register

The only East Asian spirit in the corpus to appear in the Union register, under the agreement between the Union and China. The corpus writes it “Moutai”, the register “Moutai Jiu” — the gap is acknowledged and flagged rather than smoothed over. A point in Guizhou, and a whole continent of baijiu still to be documented.

Subject: Moutai
Status: Geographical indication registered in the European Union
Place: Guizhou, China
Precision: Indicative marker — a point, and nothing more

Moutai

Stop 05 of 05 · Distinctive product

Bourbon, once again

Already met in the Northern room, bourbon returns here for what it proves: a spirit can be identified with a place the world over without being a geographical indication. Recognised by a bilateral agreement, with no delimited area — the protection is real, but it is not of the same nature.

Subject: Bourbon
Status: Distinctive product recognised under a bilateral agreement
Place: Kentucky and other states, United States
Precision: Indicative marker — a point, and nothing more

Bourbon

Exit

What this route has shown, and what it has not

Entries crossed: 6 of 6
With no position in the corpus: 0
Entries outside any route: 18 across the whole Atlas