When I was starting to grow tobacco and wanted information on how a red Virginia is made, I found a huge riff between the terms used on tins of pipe tobacco and between the terminology used by growers and even a difference in terms used by processors. Even the term "Virginias" seems to be just a marketing term. "Red Virginias" is also, and it is merely a color cure, similar to how some cigar leaf is processed... which Jeremy hits on. We as pipe tobacco users rely mostly on what marketing terms are used on tins, and yet the rest of the industry would look at you like you're speaking Chinese when you go asking about Virginias, red Virginias, etc...
To hold a company accountable for having a "red Virginia" in the mix is ludicrous, because they just made that term up in their own little niche that exists between processing and blending.
Sure sure, some farmers and processors may be aware of terms used by the blenders, but I had a hard time finding someone who could help me learn how to cure a red. Then, when you learn how to make a red, you realize how little the differences is between a gold and a red, like a few degrees that most people probably wouldn't realize to the touch in temperature. But, there is a difference in taste.
Anyways, my point is that terms that we know as pipe smokers and the terms used by the rest of the industry don't necessarily mesh.
I was reading in another thread about Rattrays using DFK. People just assume that anything that tastes fire cured is Dark Fired Kentucky, when most likely the company had way more tobaccos to chose from than the average pipe genius in the states could identify. Why not go with one of the many fire cured imperial leaf?
All the tobaccos the average pipe smoker is aware that exists...
Virginias (yellow, orange, red, African, stoved)
light burley
dark burley
orientals (maybe a few more can differentiate between all of the different types of Turkish, but not many)
latakia
perique
dark fire Kentucky
cigar leaf
rustica
...when there are hundreds of varieties that most aren't even aware of the names. How many different varieties of "Virginia are you aware of?" When you hear "red Virginia" which variety of seed stock did you mean? Did you think there was just one plant called the Red Virginia?
Now, not to make it seem like we as pipesmokers and consumers of pipe tobacco are stupid, keeping the terminology for different varieties just makes sense on a marketing perspective. One year, to make a blend taste the same due to differences in environmental issues, a blender/company may have to tweek a blend by adding another variety to keep the tastes consistent. Plus, can we handle knowing six hundred different leaf varieties? Or, would that just muddy the pond?