Appellation d’origine
contrôlée (AOC), which translates as
"controlled term of origin" is the French certification granted to
certain French
geographical indications for
wines, cheeses, butters, and other agricultural products, all under
the auspices of the government bureau
Institut National
des Appellations d'Origine (INAO).
It is based on the former concept of
terroir.
History
The origins of AOC date back to the 15th century, when
Roquefort was regulated by a
parliamentary decree. The first modern law was set
on May 6, 1919, when the Law for the Protection of the Place of
Origin was passed, specifying the region and commune that a given
product must be manufactured in, and has been revised on many
occasions since then. On July 30, 1935, the
Institut National
des Appellations d'Origine (INAO), a branch of the
French Ministry of
Agriculture, was created to manage the administration of the
process for wines.
In the Rhône wine
region Baron Pierre Le Roy Boiseaumarié, a trained lawyer and winegrower from Châteauneuf-du-Pape
, successfully obtained legal recognition of the
"Côtes du Rhône"
appellation of origin in 1937. The AOC seal was created and
mandated by French laws in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. On July 2,
1990, the scope of work of the INAO was extended beyond wines to
cover other agricultural products.
AOCs vary dramatically in size. Some cover vast expanses with a
variety of climatic and soil characteristics, while others are
small and highly uniform. For example, the
Côtes du Rhône AOC "covers some
[ ], but within its area lies one of the smallest AOCs,
Château-Grillet, which occupies
less than [ ] of land."
Enforcement
The INAO guarantees that all AOC products will hold to a rigorous
set of clearly defined standards. The organization stresses that
AOC products will be produced in a consistent and traditional
manner with ingredients from specifically classified producers in
designated geographical areas. The products must further be aged at
least partially in the respective designated area.
Under French law, it is illegal to manufacture and sell a product
under one of the AOC-controlled geographical indications if it does
not comply with the criteria of the AOC. AOC products can be
identified by a seal, which is printed on the label in wines, and
with cheeses, on the rind. To prevent any possible
misrepresentation, no part of an AOC name may be used on a label of
a product not qualifying for that AOC.
This strict label policy can lead to confusion, especially in cases
where towns share names with appellations. If the town of origin of
a product contains a controlled appellation in its name, the
producer (who is legally required to identify the place of origin
on the product label but legally prohibited from using the full
town's name unless the product is an approved AOC product) is
enjoined from listing anything more than a cryptic postal code. For
example, there are a dozen
townships in l'Aude that
have Cabardès in their names, several of which are not even within
the geographical boundaries of the
Cabardès AOC. Any vineyard that produces
wine in one of those towns must not mention the name of the town of
origin on the product labels.
Legislation concerning the way vineyards are identified makes
recognizing the various AOCs very challenging for wine drinkers not
well-acclimated to the system. Often, distinguishing
classifications requires knowledge of esoteric label laws such as
"Unless the wine is from a
Premier
Cru vineyard, the vineyard name must be printed in
characters no more than half the height of the ones used for the
village name"
On the other hand, while the process of label approval is enforced
to the millimetre, the quality control for the wine in the bottle
is much less strict. While a blind taster must approve the wine for
it to receive AOC classification, this tasting often occurs before
the product is even bottled, and by a local expert who may well
have ties to the local vintners. Even if the taster is objective,
the wine sample may not be representative of the actual product,
and there is almost no way to verify that finished bottled product
is the same as the original AOC sample
Cheese
In 1925,
Roquefort became the first
cheese to be awarded an AOC label, and since then over
40
cheeses have been assigned AOC status.
Poultry
On August 15, 1957, the National Assembly gave AOC status to the
poultry of Bresse (
Poulet de
Bresse).
Lavender
In 1981, the AOC label was given to Haute-Provence Lavender
Essential Oil. It refers to a very high-quality production and
concerns only the essential oil of fine lavender - lavandula
angustifolia. The fields must be located within a specific
territory at a minimum altitude of 800 meters. This geographic area
covers 284 communities in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence,
Hautes-Alpes, Drôme and Vaucluse regions.
Lentils
Lentils from Le Puy-en-Velay
have AOC status.
Honey
Honey from
the island of Corsica
has been
given AOC status. There are eight certified varietals of
Corsican honey: Printemps, Maquis de printemps, Miellats du maquis,
Châtaigneraie, Maquis d'été, and Maquis d'automne.
Butter
France recognizes two different AOC regions for butter, Isigny and
Poitou Charente.
Other countries
Many other countries have based their
controlled place name systems on the French AOC
classification.
Italy
's Denominazione di Origine
Controllata and Denominazione
di Origine Controllata e Garantita and the United States'
American Viticultural
Areas are both systems that followed the model set by the
French AOC. The United States
Department of the Treasury
Alcohol and Tobacco Tax
and Trade Bureau even uses the legal terminology "Appellation
of Wine Origin" to describe a vintage wine's location of
origin.
While Spain's
Denominación
de Origen is very similar, the classification of
Rioja in 1925 and
Sherry
in 1933 preceded the French AOC system by a few years and show that
Spain's DdO system developed parallel to France's AOC system to
some extent.
Similarly, Germany
's Qualitätswein
bestimmter Anbaugebiete is a wine classification system based
on geographic region, but it differs from the AOC in important
ways. Qualitätswein bestimmter Anbaugebiete wines are
commonly seen as less prestigious than
Qualitätswein mit
Prädikat, making it more similar to the
Vin de Pays or
Vin Délimité
de Qualité Superieure systems.
Portugal
's Denominação de Origem
Controlada, Austria
's Districtus Austria
Controllatus, South Africa's
Wine of Origin, and Switzerland
's AOC-IGP [97962] are all similar to the French AOC system as
well.
It appears also that AOC influenced the development of the
European Union's
protected designation of
origin (PDO) system.
See also
References
- Phillips, Rod. A Short History of Wine. NY:
HarperCollins, 2000.
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