An "appellation" is the French official naming system which defines a geographic area producing goods, especially wines, to a fixed criteria.
A few years ago, the French government woke up and realised that French exports of wines were falling drastically. They put the blame fairly and squarely at the door of the Appellations Board (I.N.A.O.).
The Appellations Board was told to “do something about it”!
As the Appellations Board has no marketing budget as such, they were in a quandary as to what to do.
So they decided to delete many parcels of Appellation land, and in one case, they tried to delete the appellation itself.
Parcels of land and vines which have been happily producing Appellation wines for the last century or so have, suddenly, come under fire, for no good reason other than the Board thinks they have “to do something”.
The Board has also decided to change the manner in which an Appellation is accorded. They have decided to give the Appellation to the wine-grower’s enterprise, rather than to the final wine, with spot checks to make sure that the grower is doing the right thing.
However, this does not make sense if the Board suddenly decides to delete parcels of land and vines from the Appellation, or indeed, the Appellation itself.
All this is due to come into force at the end of this year in time for the 2008 harvest.
However, no one, including the Appellations Board, really knows how this is going to work.
Wine growers all over France are totally bemused and, in some cases, very angry about these changes. They feel they are being dumped!
This week, while Jean-Marc was carefully pruning his vines, small cars of people drew up alongside different parcels of vines, looked at them for a few moments, then moved on. We can only assume that it is the Appellations Board checking that we are doing the right thing.
As things stand, to be able to claim an AOC or appellation:
the parcels of land have to be of such a type as to raise grapes for wines,
the vines have to be planted in a specific manner,
the vines have to be pruned in a specific manner (see article below),
the vines and grapes have to be tended in a specific manner,
the wines have to be raised in a specific manner
When the wines are finished, a sample of the new wines are taken away to be tested and analysed (this is all paid for by the wine grower, of course).
Once the Appellation is accorded, the grower can then start selling his wines. Not beforehand!
However, none of this guarantees the sale of the wine as the Appellation Board has no budget for marketing.
Added to all this, the EU has recently put in it's oar. They are about to impose regulations which
So, for countries thinking of installing a sort of geographic system similar to the French Appellations system think twice - it could be a hiding to nothing!