French Food and Wine: A System of Luxury and Rules?

Cracking open a bottle of bubbly is something that most Americans have done at least once in their lifetime. Whether when bringing in the New Year, celebrating a birthday or wedding, or any other special occasion of choice, something about this particular beverage just screams merriment in our culture. While those who drink this type of wine may automatically assume that what they are consuming is “Champagne,” many are unaware that, contrary to popular belief, all sparkling wines are not created equal. In fact, strict rules are in place authorizing which wines may be called Champagne, a name that has been legally protected since 1891’s Treaty of Madrid. Surely, countless wines have been produced à la méthode champenoise, but in order for one to be legally dubbed Champagne it must come from the strictly defined Champagne region in France (see above), and subsequently pass a series of regulations set forth by the "Comité interprofessionnel du vin de Champagne." The overarching legalization process of these standards is the Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC), translating literally to mean “controlled term of origin.” The AOC, which makes it illegal to manufacture and sell a product under one of the AOC-controlled names if it does not comply with specific criteria, is overseen by the Institut National des Appellations d’Origines (INAO), a branch of the French Ministry of Agriculture that was created in 1935 to manage wine production and appellation in France. Although the French AOC is predominately known for its protection of wine designations, over the years the products it has come to include has extended to certain cheeses, butters, and other agricultural products of France. Many people would argue that systems such as the AOC might be more negative than positive, particularly wine enthusiasts who claim one of the major disadvantages to be the extent to which it stifles experimentation of wine varieties. To be sure, the AOC system in France is not perfect and it neither guarantees the quality of taste of geographically certified products nor does it mandate their automatic superiority. Rather, it “constitutes a guarantee of origin and tradition,” and in assuring that the item purchased actually comes from the region, village, or vineyard on the label, it is a system that protects both consumers and national tradition.

Many perceive the AOC as necessary in upholding the integrity and identity of products in France, though not everyone finds the system to work in their favor. One example, highlighted in an article by The New York Times, is the case of sparkling wine producers in the small Swiss village of Champagne. In 1998 an agreement was made between the European Union and Switzerland that would allow the (late) Swiss national airline, Swissair, to make stops in European cities, on the condition that the government of Switzerland would forbid the village (comprised of about 710 people) to employ the Champagne name when labeling their goods. This agreement forced the village’s wine producers to re-label their wine (see an illegal label below left), omitting the once used qualifier “du Champagne (from Champagne),” a factor thought to be responsible for the drop in village wine sales from 110,000 bottles in 2000 to just 32,000 in 2008. Undoubtedly the suffering of those in the village is terrible, but the law and its enforcement eliminate the possible exploitation of the “Champagne” name as a means to deceive consumers. Indeed, mentioned in the very same article was the example of a farmer who, following World War II, came to the Swiss village and produced a “sparkling wine which he sold as Champagne,” with a more recent example of “ a stranger from La Côte, along Lake Geneva” trying “the same trick.” By having the AOC in place, the system ultimately protects consumers by ensuring that such product trickery cannot take place, a notion reinforced by the fact that the main rationale behind the inception of the AOC law specifically for wines was to “suppress commercial frauds,” by defining strict rules and regulations pertaining to the “numerous criteria characteristic to each wine (soil, grape variety, cultivation, yield, wine making, and temperature).”

As a matter of fact, the AOC is viewed as an extremely efficient system, so much so that it has served as a model upon which many other countries have based their respective name control systems, with examples including Italy’s “Denominazione di Origine Controllata,” and South Africa’s “Wine of Origin” system. Clearly both the people and the governments of other nation-states have seen the French AOC as a success, a sentiment reiterated by the European Union’s very own laws created in 1992 to guard the quality of particular agricultural products of the EU-27 Member States. Although there are those who perceive the EU’s respective "quality schemes" as primarily economically motivated, it is hard to deny that the process, like the AOC, does not ensure that the consumer is buying the goods they believe to be renowned and region specific. After all, everyday people choose to spend extra money on products that they believe to be of higher quality due to the brand or regional recognition. With a certification mechanism in place, consumers are able to trust in the fact that, for example, the Burgundy wine and name they chose is indeed that legitimate, grape concoction from the Burgundy region in France. As the US Department of Commerce explains, certain agricultural products are “associated with their region of production because such products are generally a result of local climate, sunshine, and soil that are specific to a particular region." As many French goods have followed growing rituals for centuries, they have come to represent things of national tradition, and with globalization enabling consumers to purchase products from across the world with greater ease it is important that laws ensuring authenticity exist. Such protection in France as created by the AOC consistently ensures that products remain to be “closely linked” with each region’s “natural and human characteristics,” as well as their "historical and ancestral savoir-faire.” In defending its national products, France is not only protecting consumers but also ensuring that the cultural and traditional facets of French gastronomy will be maintained in the centuries to come.