No, respecting the definition of the name is acknowledging that the style of whatever originated and/or was popularized in that pace. The names aren’t brands any more than Yorkshire pudding, Brazilian steak house, or Nashville hot chicken. The difference between these and balsamic is a government that is propping up the regional industry with a bs legal protection that doesn’t benefit customers or clear up any confusion. Nobody thinks that NY strip steak is flown in or their Genoise cake was baked in Genoa.
Those are recipes/styles, not ingredients. And again, it’s not protectionism - it’s not like they’re stopping you from making your own sparkling wine and labeling it “sparkling wine made with the champagne method”. It’s basic consumer protection, I don’t want to have to dig into every product to see if it’s real or fake
So is Champagne, the specific strains of grapes used have changed over the years. And even if it was the ingredients, surely any sparking wine made with those ingredients could be labeled champagne, and they're grown all over. Champagne made in California is as real as anything in France. It's protectionism because they know that champagne is the more recognizable term, and banking on people not knowing that they're alternatives, like dairy producers in the US trying to protect the term "milk" after years of "almond milk", "oat milk" existing in everyday speech. It's entirely manufactured hypothetical consumer confusion.
Specific brands can have all the trademark protection they want. Defining buffalo wings as wings made in Buffalo and only using chickens raised and slaughtered there is silly.
You seem to be under the impression that defining Champagne as coming from Champagne is a recent thing. It's not, it's been like that since the 19th century, even being codified in the Madrid treaty of 1891 - long before anyone was making sparkling wine in the USA .
The fact that the US didn't initially sign these treaties and allowed people to sell fake Champagne to their consumers for so long doesn't really change that
