Wasteful...

Pride makes one wasteful. In the name of Brand protection, Belgian authorities destroyed over 3200 bottles of California Champagne last week. Here's the CBC story:

http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2008/01/11/champagne-counterfeit.html

Here's an expansion on that story that identifies a few more items on the EU list of protected brand names:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/interactives/who-consumerbrands/index.html

In a single stroke, hours of labour to grow ingredients and prepare the product for shipping and a large amount of packaging (not to mention the product itself) were destroyed. For what? Pride? Money? On one level I understand, and on another I can't help but throw my hands up at such a stubborn refusal to recognize wasteful practices.