Exploring the French Wine Classification System

Hello everyone and welcome to the WineCast. This episode is on the French system for classifying wine. As with the previous episode on Italian wine classification, it might be worth checking out the WineCast on the European Union Wine Quality Framework before you watch this episode, and you might even take a look at the cast on Italian wine classification for comparison's sake. So currently, the French system maps perfectly onto the EU framework for wine classification. Like the EU framework, the French system has three tiers, a top level, highly regulated for quality wines, a less regulated middle tier, and a bottom level tier largely for the production of inexpensive bulk wine. But the French system got to its current state by fits and starts, and it also has the distinction of arguably being the oldest formal classification system for wine in the modern world. The story of how it got where it is now starts in the early 20th century, which was a rough time for French wine and for wine throughout the world. because the wine world was still reeling from three diseases, powdery mildew, downy mildew, and probably the worst of all, phylloxera, that attacked vines in Europe and elsewhere and almost wiped out the wine industry as we know it today. By some estimates, phylloxera alone caused French wine production to drop by 75%. To all of that, you can add the devastation caused by the First World War to several wine regions in France, especially Champagne. All of these factors combined to create some serious wine shortages early in the 20th century, and also to incentivize producers to cut corners and engage in various types of fraud to goose up their wines. A key part of this fraud involved blending less expensive wines from areas with less of a reputation for quality with wines from known quality-producing areas. In reaction to practices like these, there was a movement afoot in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in France to develop an appellation system that would put the force of law behind guaranteeing that if a bottle said it was from a particular region, then so would all of the wine in the bottle. Though some regions like Champagne and the Côte d'Oronne had already secured a kind of appellation protection for themselves in the past, things got interesting in 1923 when a group of producers in Chateauneuf-du-Pape, a small region in the southern Rhone Valley in southeastern France, approached a French war hero turned lawyer who had taken up residence in Chateauneuf. when he married into one of the major wine-producing families in the area. The producers asked him to help them secure an appellation for Chateauneuf-du-Pape. The hero, an ace pilot during the First World War, was the Baron Pierre Leroy de Bois-Sommarier, and he agreed to throw his influence behind the proposal, but he also wanted to take the request for an appellation a step farther and impose a series of strict rules on local producers. So the consumers buying their wines would not only know it was from Chateauneuf, but they would also know they could expect a certain level of quality because the wine production there adhered to a set of best practices. The rules he wanted limited the grapes that could be used, limited where the vines could be planted and grown, and, among other things, didn't allow winemakers to add sugar to their grape juice before fermentation to boost alcohol levels in the finished wine, a practice called chaptalization. The producers who approached him agreed, and in 1926, the Baron made his proposal to a local court on their behalf. Despite some opposition from some less-than-quality-minded local producers, the court agreed with the Baron, and Chateauneuf received an appellation, but along with it a series of legally required best practices for winemakers to adhere to, if they wanted to use that appellation. This was a big deal because the Baron and the producers made the issue not just about avoiding fraud by guaranteeing that all the wine in the bottle was from Chateauneuf. But they also made it about assuring customers that they would be buying a wine of quality if they saw that place name on it. By the 1930s, there was mounting pressure to follow Chateauneuf's example across all of France's wine regions, and in 1935, a nationwide system of controlled appellations was rolled out, called AOCs for Appellation de Régime Contrôlé, or Controlled Appellation of Origin, with the first official awards going to these AOCs the following year, including one for Chateauneuf that was formally included in the nationwide system at this time, even though in many ways it pioneered the movement. This system was overseen by a regulatory body that would come to be known after World War II as the Institut National des Appellations de Régime, and is possibly best known by the acronym INAO. In fact, even though the current version of this organization has changed its name a bit, it still goes by the INAO acronym. The AOC tier occupies the top level of the French quality wine pyramid, and it's equivalent to the PDO, or quality level, of the EU classification framework. meaning that a wine carrying an AOC designation has to be made entirely from grapes grown in a clearly demarcated geographic area, and has to conform to usually very strict regulations and requirements for grape growing and wine production. The EU's current framework was put in place in 2009, and since then member countries like France have been working to bring their nomenclature in line with that used by the EU. So more and more you may be seeing AOP, for Appellation d'Origine Protégée, wine labels to designate this quality label, then you'll see AOC, but both refer to exactly the same thing. And currently, there are over 300 AOC or AOP in France. Now, if you remember the cast on the Italian classification system, you'll know that the top tier of the Italian wine pyramid is subdivided into two categories, DOC and DOCG, with the latter of the two being stricter and more prestigious than the former. France doesn't To do this, it only has AOCs, but the two approaches aren't completely different because of the peculiar way that France's AOCs relate to each other. Some people like to describe AOCs as nested within each other, but to me they seem more like they're layered, like parts of a collage. In a given French wine region, you're likely to find a large regional AOC that covers the entire area, and then within that, a number of district AOCs that are defined based on factors like the local geography. And overlapping these districts and the regional AOC, you'll usually find communal or village AOC defined based on the boundaries of a local municipality. Finally, a bit less common are individual vineyards and single estates that have been granted AOC status. While these are all AOCs, the general rule is that standards get stricter and the chance of quality goes up the smaller the appellation gets. I like to think of these appellations as layered because if wine being made in one of the smaller AOCs, say a village level one, doesn't meet the standards for that AOC, it can be granted the AOC of the district that the village is in, and if it doesn't meet those standards, it can then go down another level and try for regional AOC status. Looking at a real example of this might make things more clear. Here's an AOC map for Bordeaux. Notice the number 11 popping up in a number of places on the map. Here, down here, a couple of times over here, here, and a few other places. This represents the regional AOC for Bordeaux, and it's actually lying underneath every colored area on this map. But the only places you can see it are those that don't have an additional, more specific AOC on top of the regional one. Now, let's look... at the area identified as number 2 here in pink. This is the district AOC for the Haute-Médoc, and on top of it are lying a number of communal or village AOC identified in different colors and in different numbers. We can use number 7 as our example. This is the AOC for Moulison-Médoc, and wine that's made here, if it doesn't qualify for the designation for Moulin Zon Médoc because it hasn't met the expectations or guidelines for that AOC, it could potentially be qualified or classified as Haute Médoc wine because Moulin Zon Médoc sits on top of the Haute Médoc AOC. If it doesn't meet the guidelines and the expectations for Haute Médoc AOC status, then it could potentially be classified as Bordeaux AOC because both Haute-Médoc and Moulins-en-Médoc lie on top of the regional Bordeaux AOC appellation. Now, Bordeaux doesn't have any single vineyard appellations, but hopefully you get the idea from all of this. Also, keep in mind that the smaller the AOC, the more specific the rules tend to be about what can qualify for it. For example, the rules for the Haute-Médoc AOC, the one in pink, and for all of its communal AOCs only allow for dry red wines to receive those designations. If an estate in one of those areas produces white wine, and there are some that do, it can only be given an AOC Bordeaux designation at best. And there are no AOCs in Bordeaux beyond the regional one that allow for rosé. So any rosé produced anywhere in Bordeaux can only get the AOC Bordeaux status. What happens if a wine fails to meet the requirements for AOC status? then the wine could potentially be classed in the next tier down on the quality pyramid, the IGP tier. This tier lines up with the EU PGI level in the European Union system, and its name, Indication Géographique Protégée, is a pretty literal translation of the EU's Protected Geographical Indication. The system was enacted by law in 1973, but it wasn't rolled out formally until 1979. and was originally called the Vin de Paix or country wine level. And it took the title PGI in 2009. It was created as a less regulated tier than the AOC, as a means to allow producers to make wines in a non-traditional and experimental way, but also to be able to market those wines without having to identify them as table wine, the only other tier in the system, which was a category that had extremely limited commercial potential. This level took on the same significance in France that the IGT category would have for Italy, and it was especially important for allowing French wine producers to work on developing quality wines based on single grape varieties, a style that hasn't traditionally been very important or emphasized in France. Though more could be added in the future, there are currently six regional IGPs in France, all covering large areas and usually multiple wine regions. They are... The Comte de Tolosson, that covers multiple wine regions in southwest France. L'Atlantique, that covers Bordeaux and other nearby regions. Val-de-Loire, covering the large Loire Valley region. Comte Rodanienne, covering the northern Rhone Valley, Savoy and the Jura. The Méditerranée, covering the southern Rhone and Provence. And finally, the Pays d'Oc, covering the Languedoc-Roussillon area. These six regions are subdivided into 52 departmental IGPs and more than 90 even smaller zonal IGPs. And the different IGPs relate to each other the same way that the different AOCs do. Finally, not all wine regions in France have IGPs, much like not all wine regions in Italy have IGTs. At present, Champagne, Burgundy, Beaujolais, and Alsace don't have IGPs, and wine made in those regions that doesn't conform to AOC guidelines has to be declassified to the lowest tier of the quality pyramid, the Vann or wine level. Originally called Vann de Taube or table wine, the grapes for wines in this category can be from anywhere in France or the EU. If all the grapes come from France, then a wine made at this tier can be classified as Vann de France. There are very few regulations for wine made at this level, apart from basic health and safety rules. This category is not usually where you're going to find wine made with an IDA quality, but there are exceptions, especially in areas that don't have IGPs and where producers working outside the AOC guidelines for quality's sake have to have their wines classified to this tier. Lastly, I should mention that there was an additional tier on the quality pyramid up until pretty recently. Vin Delimité de Calité Supérieur, or Delimited Superior Quality Wine, that was situated between the IGP, or Vin De Paye level, and the AOC, or AOP level. The idea was for it to function as a stepping stone for wines to move up to the AOC level, but that never really panned out, and the category was eliminated in 2011. It was never a big part of French production, so you're actually unlikely to run into too many bottles with this designation. But it does get referenced when discussing the French quality system, and I've included it here for the sake of completeness. That's this wine cast. Hopefully it left you with a better understanding of how French wines are classified, and how those classifications relate to the EU and to other countries. If you want to see some pictures of classifications on French wine labels, please check out the cast on the EU classification system. There are several of them there. Also, please like and subscribe below, and always feel free to leave a comment. I'm the Unknown Wine Caster, and I'm out. As always, enjoy the grape, but always enjoy it responsibly.

Like the EU framework, the French system has three tiers, a top level, highly regulated for quality wines, a less regulated middle tier, and a bottom level tier largely for the production of inexpensive bulk wine. But the French system got to its current state by fits and starts, and it also has the distinction of arguably being the oldest formal classification system for wine in the modern world. The story of how it got where it is now starts in the early 20th century, which was a rough time for French wine and for wine throughout the world.

because the wine world was still reeling from three diseases, powdery mildew, downy mildew, and probably the worst of all, phylloxera, that attacked vines in Europe and elsewhere and almost wiped out the wine industry as we know it today. By some estimates, phylloxera alone caused French wine production to drop by 75%. To all of that, you can add the devastation caused by the First World War to several wine regions in France, especially Champagne.

All of these factors combined to create some serious wine shortages early in the 20th century, and also to incentivize producers to cut corners and engage in various types of fraud to goose up their wines. A key part of this fraud involved blending less expensive wines from areas with less of a reputation for quality with wines from known quality-producing areas. In reaction to practices like these, there was a movement afoot in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in France to develop an appellation system that would put the force of law behind guaranteeing that if a bottle said it was from a particular region, then so would all of the wine in the bottle. Though some regions like Champagne and the Côte d'Oronne had already secured a kind of appellation protection for themselves in the past, things got interesting in 1923 when a group of producers in Chateauneuf-du-Pape, a small region in the southern Rhone Valley in southeastern France, approached a French war hero turned lawyer who had taken up residence in Chateauneuf.

when he married into one of the major wine-producing families in the area. The producers asked him to help them secure an appellation for Chateauneuf-du-Pape. The hero, an ace pilot during the First World War, was the Baron Pierre Leroy de Bois-Sommarier, and he agreed to throw his influence behind the proposal, but he also wanted to take the request for an appellation a step farther and impose a series of strict rules on local producers. So the consumers buying their wines would not only know it was from Chateauneuf, but they would also know they could expect a certain level of quality because the wine production there adhered to a set of best practices. The rules he wanted limited the grapes that could be used, limited where the vines could be planted and grown, and, among other things, didn't allow winemakers to add sugar to their grape juice before fermentation to boost alcohol levels in the finished wine, a practice called chaptalization.

The producers who approached him agreed, and in 1926, the Baron made his proposal to a local court on their behalf. Despite some opposition from some less-than-quality-minded local producers, the court agreed with the Baron, and Chateauneuf received an appellation, but along with it a series of legally required best practices for winemakers to adhere to, if they wanted to use that appellation. This was a big deal because the Baron and the producers made the issue not just about avoiding fraud by guaranteeing that all the wine in the bottle was from Chateauneuf. But they also made it about assuring customers that they would be buying a wine of quality if they saw that place name on it.

By the 1930s, there was mounting pressure to follow Chateauneuf's example across all of France's wine regions, and in 1935, a nationwide system of controlled appellations was rolled out, called AOCs for Appellation de Régime Contrôlé, or Controlled Appellation of Origin, with the first official awards going to these AOCs the following year, including one for Chateauneuf that was formally included in the nationwide system at this time, even though in many ways it pioneered the movement. This system was overseen by a regulatory body that would come to be known after World War II as the Institut National des Appellations de Régime, and is possibly best known by the acronym INAO. In fact, even though the current version of this organization has changed its name a bit, it still goes by the INAO acronym. The AOC tier occupies the top level of the French quality wine pyramid, and it's equivalent to the PDO, or quality level, of the EU classification framework.

meaning that a wine carrying an AOC designation has to be made entirely from grapes grown in a clearly demarcated geographic area, and has to conform to usually very strict regulations and requirements for grape growing and wine production. The EU's current framework was put in place in 2009, and since then member countries like France have been working to bring their nomenclature in line with that used by the EU. So more and more you may be seeing AOP, for Appellation d'Origine Protégée, wine labels to designate this quality label, then you'll see AOC, but both refer to exactly the same thing. And currently, there are over 300 AOC or AOP in France. Now, if you remember the cast on the Italian classification system, you'll know that the top tier of the Italian wine pyramid is subdivided into two categories, DOC and DOCG, with the latter of the two being stricter and more prestigious than the former.

France doesn't To do this, it only has AOCs, but the two approaches aren't completely different because of the peculiar way that France's AOCs relate to each other. Some people like to describe AOCs as nested within each other, but to me they seem more like they're layered, like parts of a collage. In a given French wine region, you're likely to find a large regional AOC that covers the entire area, and then within that, a number of district AOCs that are defined based on factors like the local geography.

And overlapping these districts and the regional AOC, you'll usually find communal or village AOC defined based on the boundaries of a local municipality. Finally, a bit less common are individual vineyards and single estates that have been granted AOC status. While these are all AOCs, the general rule is that standards get stricter and the chance of quality goes up the smaller the appellation gets.

I like to think of these appellations as layered because if wine being made in one of the smaller AOCs, say a village level one, doesn't meet the standards for that AOC, it can be granted the AOC of the district that the village is in, and if it doesn't meet those standards, it can then go down another level and try for regional AOC status. Looking at a real example of this might make things more clear. Here's an AOC map for Bordeaux.

Notice the number 11 popping up in a number of places on the map. Here, down here, a couple of times over here, here, and a few other places. This represents the regional AOC for Bordeaux, and it's actually lying underneath every colored area on this map.

But the only places you can see it are those that don't have an additional, more specific AOC on top of the regional one. Now, let's look... at the area identified as number 2 here in pink. This is the district AOC for the Haute-Médoc, and on top of it are lying a number of communal or village AOC identified in different colors and in different numbers.

We can use number 7 as our example. This is the AOC for Moulison-Médoc, and wine that's made here, if it doesn't qualify for the designation for Moulin Zon Médoc because it hasn't met the expectations or guidelines for that AOC, it could potentially be qualified or classified as Haute Médoc wine because Moulin Zon Médoc sits on top of the Haute Médoc AOC. If it doesn't meet the guidelines and the expectations for Haute Médoc AOC status, then it could potentially be classified as Bordeaux AOC because both Haute-Médoc and Moulins-en-Médoc lie on top of the regional Bordeaux AOC appellation.

Now, Bordeaux doesn't have any single vineyard appellations, but hopefully you get the idea from all of this. Also, keep in mind that the smaller the AOC, the more specific the rules tend to be about what can qualify for it. For example, the rules for the Haute-Médoc AOC, the one in pink, and for all of its communal AOCs only allow for dry red wines to receive those designations.

If an estate in one of those areas produces white wine, and there are some that do, it can only be given an AOC Bordeaux designation at best. And there are no AOCs in Bordeaux beyond the regional one that allow for rosé. So any rosé produced anywhere in Bordeaux can only get the AOC Bordeaux status.

What happens if a wine fails to meet the requirements for AOC status? then the wine could potentially be classed in the next tier down on the quality pyramid, the IGP tier. This tier lines up with the EU PGI level in the European Union system, and its name, Indication Géographique Protégée, is a pretty literal translation of the EU's Protected Geographical Indication. The system was enacted by law in 1973, but it wasn't rolled out formally until 1979. and was originally called the Vin de Paix or country wine level. And it took the title PGI in 2009. It was created as a less regulated tier than the AOC, as a means to allow producers to make wines in a non-traditional and experimental way, but also to be able to market those wines without having to identify them as table wine, the only other tier in the system, which was a category that had extremely limited commercial potential.

This level took on the same significance in France that the IGT category would have for Italy, and it was especially important for allowing French wine producers to work on developing quality wines based on single grape varieties, a style that hasn't traditionally been very important or emphasized in France. Though more could be added in the future, there are currently six regional IGPs in France, all covering large areas and usually multiple wine regions. They are...

The Comte de Tolosson, that covers multiple wine regions in southwest France. L'Atlantique, that covers Bordeaux and other nearby regions. Val-de-Loire, covering the large Loire Valley region.

Comte Rodanienne, covering the northern Rhone Valley, Savoy and the Jura. The Méditerranée, covering the southern Rhone and Provence. And finally, the Pays d'Oc, covering the Languedoc-Roussillon area. These six regions are subdivided into 52 departmental IGPs and more than 90 even smaller zonal IGPs.

And the different IGPs relate to each other the same way that the different AOCs do. Finally, not all wine regions in France have IGPs, much like not all wine regions in Italy have IGTs. At present, Champagne, Burgundy, Beaujolais, and Alsace don't have IGPs, and wine made in those regions that doesn't conform to AOC guidelines has to be declassified to the lowest tier of the quality pyramid, the Vann or wine level. Originally called Vann de Taube or table wine, the grapes for wines in this category can be from anywhere in France or the EU. If all the grapes come from France, then a wine made at this tier can be classified as Vann de France.

There are very few regulations for wine made at this level, apart from basic health and safety rules. This category is not usually where you're going to find wine made with an IDA quality, but there are exceptions, especially in areas that don't have IGPs and where producers working outside the AOC guidelines for quality's sake have to have their wines classified to this tier. Lastly, I should mention that there was an additional tier on the quality pyramid up until pretty recently. Vin Delimité de Calité Supérieur, or Delimited Superior Quality Wine, that was situated between the IGP, or Vin De Paye level, and the AOC, or AOP level. The idea was for it to function as a stepping stone for wines to move up to the AOC level, but that never really panned out, and the category was eliminated in 2011. It was never a big part of French production, so you're actually unlikely to run into too many bottles with this designation.

But it does get referenced when discussing the French quality system, and I've included it here for the sake of completeness. That's this wine cast. Hopefully it left you with a better understanding of how French wines are classified, and how those classifications relate to the EU and to other countries. If you want to see some pictures of classifications on French wine labels, please check out the cast on the EU classification system. There are several of them there.

Also, please like and subscribe below, and always feel free to leave a comment. I'm the Unknown Wine Caster, and I'm out. As always, enjoy the grape, but always enjoy it responsibly.

Transcript for:Exploring the French Wine Classification System

Transcript for:
Exploring the French Wine Classification System