(Decanter) - Andrew Jefford briefly considers the implications of treating Champagne and other protected terms as simply 'common-name products'.

Most mornings, before dawn or after, I tune into Farming Today on BBC Radio 4.

A recent interview with Shawna Morris, vice president of trade policy for the US Dairy Export Council, made me choke on my tea (Twinings Vintage Darjeeling, 92 points, note on application).

She brightly suggested that one of the advantages Britons might like to seize, on leaving the EU, was the chance to abandon European name-protection legislation. ‘Our issue is, frankly, overreach,’ she complained of the existing system.

Champagne and Cognac (as well as Parma ham and what she called ‘Parmegian’) were, Morris suggested, examples of ‘common-name products’ whose names should be free for all to use, claiming that protection of such names by the EU was akin to someone ‘trademarking the name “sausage” or “oyster’”.