French Flashcards
Mis(e) en bouteille
Is French for bottled. A wine that is mis(e) en bouteille au château is château bottled, while mis(e) en bouteille au domaine is domaine bottled. Mis(e) en bouteille du château/domaine is a term used by co-operatives for their bottlings of wines they vinified from the grapes of individual properties. In French the bottling operation is often referred to as la mise.
INAO
The Institut National de l’Origine et de la Qualité (formerly the Institut National des Appellations d’Origine), is the organization in charge of recognizing, granting, administering, regulating, and protecting the French appellations contrôlées, or AOC, now known as appellation d’origine protégée or AOP (see PDO) and the other official signes (signs) such as igp that identify quality and origin for agricultural products, including not just wines and spirits but also other alcoholic drinks, dairy products, olive oil, meat, honey, fruit and vegetables, etc. In 2014 there were more than 300 AOC/AOPs for wine (more than 350 if you count every alsace grand cru separately), 75 IGPs/vins de pays, as well as 50 AOPs for dairy products, and 45 for meat, poultry, olive oil, etc. Since IGP wines came under the INAO umbrella in 2009, it has controlled a massive proportion of all French wine, more than 90% of volume in 2012. Nearly 75,000 vine-growers therefore depend on its rules, its undoubted restrictions, its protection, and its efforts to continue France’s reliance on geographically based wine names. The organization is based in Paris but run by regional committees and administrative offices. INAO was founded in 1935 and, since for much of the 20th century France’s leading role in the world of wine was undisputed, it provided a role model for the administration of more embryonic geographical indication schemes in other countries. During the 1980s, however, commercial competition from non-French wines, and even from some French vin de pays on export markets, encouraged a re-examination of the role of INAO. The result was an even stronger INAO, given additional powers in 1990, fiercely dedicated to the notion of controlled, geographically determined appellations for products that owe their characteristics to their region of origin and a prescribed mode of production, empowered to protect them against imitation both in France and abroad, and determined that France’s viticultural future in particular depended on her ability to trade on her uniquely well-established wine names. Falling sales called into question INAO’s policy of prohibiting all vine variety names on wine labels, on the premise that French wines express terroir rather than mere fruit flavour. Certain producers positively relish their freedom to sell varietal wines, or vins de cépages as they are known, and often despised, within France. Thanks to changes in eu rules, wines without geographical indication may now also state the variety and vintage on the label. Any group of wine producers can apply to INAO to establish an AOP or an IGP. They have to prepare a dossier by giving reasons for the request, proof of the traditional use of the name of the proposed appellation, full details of the terroir and how it affects production, and economic details concerning markets, sales, prices, and comparative prices of similar products. Once it has been agreed by INAO, it has to be approved by the EU and published in the Journal Officiel de l’Union Européenne.
Comité Interprofessionnel
Body representing all interests concerned with the production of a certain wine and the French counterpart to the consorzio of Italy and Spain’s consejo regulador. The model for all such organizations was the civc of Champagne.
Négociant
French term for a merchant and one used particularly of wine merchants who buy in grapes, must, or wine, blend different lots of wine within an appellation, and bottle the result under their own label. Making a perfectly balanced blend from a number of imperfect parts is a potentially noble calling, but one that once provided so many opportunities for adulteration and fraud that it brought the entire profession into question, if not ill repute, at least until the late 1980s. Nowadays, with the bureaucracy involved in the aoc system, cheating requires real ingenuity. The role of the négociant is particularly worthwhile in burgundy, where the oldest négociants, traditionally concentrated in Beaune, have been joined since the later 20th century by a new breed of smaller operators, often run alongside a grower’s own domaine. So many individual growers produce tiny quantities from each of a number of different appellations that it can make sense to make up commercially more significant quantities and bottle them together. Many of the larger Burgundy négociants have significant vineyard holdings of their own. bouchard père et fils and boisset, for example, are two of the côte d’or’s most subtantial vineyard owners. Louis latour, Louis jadot, and Joseph drouhin are other important Burgundian négociants. The term négociant-éleveur implies that the négociant oversees the élevage of the wine it sells (not always the case). Like all important French wine regions, Bordeaux also has a great concentration of négociants, many of which own châteaux (while some of the classed growths are run alongside a négociant business).
VDQS
Was France’s minuscule interim wine quality designation between vin de pays and appellation contrôlée, which accounted for less than 1% of the nation’s wine production. The VDQS category was scrapped after the 2010 vintage and most have been promoted to aoc.
Appellation Controlee
short for Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC), is France’s controlled appellation, renamed Appellation d’Origine Protegée (AOP) in response to the eu reforms of 2008. This much-imitated, prototypical, and inherently protectionist system of designating and controlling her all-important geographically based names applies not just to wines but also to spirits such as cognac, armagnac, and calvados, as well as to many foods. It is administered by the inao, a powerful Paris-based body which also controls the less restrictive denomination Indication Géographique Protégée or igp (formerly vin de pays). AOP/AOC wines represent 46% of French wine production (ten-year average to 2013), IGP 28%.
Appellation Controlee- History
France’s role as a wine producer had been gravely affected by the viticultural devastation caused by powdery mildew, downy mildew, and phylloxera in the second half of the 19th century (see france, history). Fine wines were available in much-reduced quantity, but the languedoc and algeria had become vast factories for the production of very ordinary wine at very low prices. Laws passed in the first two decades of the 20th century were aimed at bringing an end to the adulteration and fraud that was by then widespread. These were based simply on the principle of geographical delimitation, and specified particular areas within which certain wines had to be produced. Bordeaux, Banyuls, and Clairette de Die were among the first; disagreement about exactly which districts should be allowed to produce France’s most famous sparkling wine led to riots. It rapidly became clear, however, that France’s famous wines depended on more than geography. The wrong grape varieties and careless winemaking would not result in a suitable expression of these carefully delimited terroirs. By 1923, Baron le Roy, the most influential and well-connected producer of châteauneuf-du-pape, was implementing in his part of the southern Rhône a much more detailed set of rules including not just geographical delimitation but a specification of permitted vine varieties, pruning, and vine-training methods, and minimum alcoholic strength. The French Appellation Contrôlée system evolved into a national reality in the 1930s when economic depression, widespread cultivation of hybrids, and a serious wine surplus increased the incentive for wine merchants to indulge in nefarious blending. The producers of genuine Pommard, for example, had a very real interest in limiting the use of their name to themselves. In 1935 the INAO was created with the express mission of drawing up and enforcing specifications for individual AOCs, which broadly followed the Châteauneuf prototype, and in principle banned hybrids from AOC wine. The great majority of the appellation regulations for France’s most famous wines and spirits are therefore dated 1936 or 1937, although they have been continuously revised since. The vdqs category, created in 1949 for wines deemed just below AOC status, was abolished after the 2010 vintage. The legal powers of the INAO, both within France and in its dealings with the EU and beyond, were strengthened substantially in 1990, when it took the conscious decision to try to build the future of French wine on the concept of geographical appellations (eschewing even the mention of vine varieties on the main label) and adopted the specific aim of preserving agricultural activity in certain zones. But in 2004, when France’s wine exports were clearly in significant decline and domestic sales stagnant, this policy was dramatically modified to make French wine labels easier to understand and the wines themselves more competitive in the global market. The aim was to raise the average quality of AOC wines and introduce some new regional Vin de Pays categories (most now rebadged as IGP). The INAO continues to wage war on all misused generic wine and spirit names but, as an increasing number of French wine producers find the detailed AOP/AOC regulations too restrictive, the supremacy of the AOC system is no longer unchallenged orthodoxy.
Appellation Controllee- The Regulations Slope
The INAO’s detailed regulations for its more than 300 AOP/AOCs are already voluminous and constantly revised, covering the following aspects for each appellation. The regulations for the IGP category (with 75 listed in 2014) are similar but generally less restrictive.
Appellation Controllee- Production Area
All those communes allowed to produce the wine in question are listed, but within each of these communes only certain plots of land are deemed worthy, details of which are lodged with each commune’s all-important mairie or administrative centre. Vines grown elsewhere within the commune are normally entitled only to be sold as a less specific appellation, an IGP, or vin de france.
Appellation Controllee- Vine Varieties
The permitted grapes are specified in great detail, along with permitted maximum and minimum proportions. Vineyards will generally be inspected to ensure that the correct varieties are planted. Many appellation regulations include long lists of half-forgotten but once-significant local varieties. White grape varieties are permitted to a certain extent in a number of red wine appellations.
Appellation Controllee- Ripeness and alcoholic strength
Specific must weights are generally cited for freshly picked grapes before any chaptalization, generally given in g/l of sugar. A maximum alcoholic strength after any chaptalization, if allowed, is also usually specified.
Appellation Controllee- Yields
Control of yields is a fundamental tenet of the Appellation Contrôlée system, however sceptical some New World viticulturists are of the concept. The maximum yields cited in the regulations, the rendement maximum autorisé (RA), were almost routinely increased, however, by about 20% throughout the 1970s and 1980s thanks to a frequently used special derogation known as the plafond limite de classement or PLC. In 1993, the INAO announced its intention to curb yields (as the EU has done) but this has not been adopted with noticeable enthusiasm. The PLC has been abolished but it is still possible to request a derogation (up or down) if the application can be justified—by the vintage weather conditions, for example. This section usually includes information on a minimum vine age allowed for AOP/AOC production.
Appellation Controllee- Viticulture
This usually specifies a minimum vine density, the approved pruning regime down to the number of buds, and the permitted vine-training system. In some southern appellations the (limited) extent to which irrigation is allowed may be outlined.
Appellation Controllee- Winemaking
This long section may well specify such aspects as compulsory destemming, method of rosé winemaking (usually by saignée), although there is generous use of the vague phrase usages locaux.
Appellation Controllee- Pros and Cons
France’s Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée designation is in general a more reliable guide to the country’s best wines than, for example, the qba category of supposedly superior wines in Germany, the liberally applied doc designation in Italy and Portugal, and its do counterpart in Spain (all of the last three modelled on the AOC system). The French system is by no means perfect, however. Policing remains a problem, and the Service de la Répression des Fraudes is probably understaffed. Contraventions of the regulations, particularly over-chaptalization, or chaptalization and acidification of the same wine, are difficult to detect (although a complex bureaucracy controls over-production). Misdemeanours are only very rarely publicized, and then usually only as a result of local politics. A more serious disadvantage of the Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée system is the extent to which it stifles experimentation. In dramatic contrast to the New World, vinegrowers may plant only certain vine varieties. Those wishing to experiment are often restricted to selling the wine not merely as an IGP, but as Vin de France. The Appellation Contrôlée regulations were drawn up not with a clean slate and a pencil devoted to the best possible options, but to legitimize the best current practices. It is also fanciful to suggest that every wine produced within an appellation inevitably uniquely betrays its geographical provenance. Few blind tasters would unhesitatingly identify a côtes du marmandais, for example. And then there are the catch-all appellations such as bordeaux aoc, alsace, and champagne, whose quality variation is simply frustrating.
