PGI Time

If the cheese is Roquefort cheese, you know it’s from a certain region in the south of France. The trade name has a protected geographical indication (PGI).

We preachers like to think all our sermons are pretty Gouda, but this one -- honestly -- is cheesy, at least at its start.

Roquefort cheesy, to be specific. (Working some cheese puns into the sermon shouldn't be too hard -- in fact, it should be a bries.)

Roquefort cheese, you may know, is a sheep-milk blue cheese from the south of France, but what you may not know is that not just any sheep-milk blue cheese can be legally labeled Roquefort. To qualify for that name, the cheese must be made entirely from the milk of the Lacaune breed of sheep and matured in the natural caves near the town of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon in the Aveyron region of France, where it is colonized by the fungus Penicillium roqueforti that grows in these caves.

And who says so? The European Union, no less.

In fact, the EU has designation schemes that enable products to be placed on its protected food-name register. Goods like cheese, wine, chocolate, honey and several others are eligible for this register if they meet...