That .. makes sense, point well taken. But that gives way to another question. Let me explain a bit, before laying down the actual question. As a wine guy I am quite accustomed to European legislation in as far as regulating various aspects. For example, whenever one reads on a bottle DOC, which in english I guess it translates "controlled appellation of origin" one automatically thinks of a certain delimited geographical area, thus the consumer knows not only the grape variety but also the terroir it comes from and what possibly can be expected from that wine. It also preserves grape quality within that region, etc etc. Furthermore, European legislations points out that a monosepaje DOC must contain at least 85% of that grape variety. So a bottle of cabernet sauvignon must have at least 85% cabernet sauvignon leaving a 15% of the content to the oenolog's discretion, without requiring a disclosure. Heck, regulation also requires that wine be made entirely out of fermented grapes, whatever other lean fermented beverage with a content as low as for say 10% merlot for example, cannot be sold under the label wine. This has proven very useful for the consumer, both in as far as expectation and preserving a superior quality for wine. The list of such regulated or unregulated laws, written or unwritten, in the wine world can go on ... In many cases the need for regulation came from the private sector, from the wine yards themselves, and was enforced by the government though acts of legislation in order to protect the precious drink and its implicit market.
So here is the question:
Why was this not replicated with pipe tobacco? Wouldn't it be useful for the end consumer? I am not saying we should get the government involved, as the case with wine, I would not be an advocate of that at all as tobaccos is much more sensitive of a matter. But in order to preserve pipe tobacco blending tradition, the leading experts in pipe blending - be that professional blenders and/or experts as recognized by the pipe smoking community, should get together and lay the foundation for a common language. That way, when we say Va/per we would have a ballpark idea of what minimum quantity of virginia would go in there, how much perique and how much other stuff, other stuff that should not be disclosed for obvious reasons of keeping a recipe secret. Also, a nameless OTC blend that contains more chemicals than tobacco would not be called va/per, or even tobacco blend but rather a tobacco based product, for example, even if it truly did contain virginias and perique. I am asking you guys wouldn't that benefit us all? It would force manufacturers to a quality standard, it would eliminate confusion among consumers, and would preserver pipe blending tradition in the long run. How many of us complained that Dunhill blend quality has changed, for the better or the worst, as the blends repeatedly changed owners. Maybe some unwritten law of pipe blending would diminish such transitions. This may even bridge the language gap between the blenders and the farmers. I don't know ... I am just throwing various ideas out there, but you get my meaning. And the million dollar question would be, is this feasible in the first place? Obviously if this were feasible some great minds of the past would have taken such an initiative ... What's your take on this?