Most people’s first instinct upon grasping an unopened bottle of French wine is not to read its labels. While wine is above all a sensual experience, there is no reason it cannot be an intellectual if not political one as well. Labels help you learn about the regions and the people who produced it; this information will only help you to enjoy the wine more. French wine labels provide a staggering amount of information in such a small amount of space.
This abundance of information comes in no small part because the French wine industry is thoroughly regulated. The government has tried to protect its winegrowers and winemakers from increasing global competition. Wine labelling then is a political act as well that attempts to promote French wine against outside competition. These regulations and labels are anything but simple. They create a frequently changing vocabulary all their own. Decoding them is not just a matter of translation, but is fairly complicated for even French native speakers to understand. Being fascinated by wine and a general nerd about food and drink, I will try to guide you through the fascinating labyrinth of French wine labelling. After finishing this guide you can choose not only a wine that is delicious, but also one that fits your political beliefs as well.
First, don’t even go right for the main label. The foil capsule
The next number probably is far less interesting as it is the number the government has given to that winery. Yet the presence or absence of the word recoltant between these numbers is telling. Having the word recoltant (harvester), actually a shortened version of Propriétaire-récoltant (harvester-owner), means that the grapes were harvested, vinified and bottled all on site. Therefore there is not a mixture of grapes from many different places, or a combination of wine from different stages, but instead from a single vineyard that completed all viticultural and vinicultural practices themselves. If you want to experience terroir, the glorious fusion of local soils and climates combined with thousands of years of human wine-making knowledge and practices that produces something that is irreproducible elsewhere, choosing a recoltant wine is a good first step in exploring the unique terroirs of France.
On the neck of the bottle also printed on this foil, is another telling label, that of the vignerons indépendant, which is a label that attempts to maintain independent winegrowers and winemakers in an age when many French wineries are owned by multinational corporations or financial speculators. This organization of independent winemakers also tries to maintain the diversity of different winemakers and their techniques in France. The difference between the recoltant and a vigneron indépendant is then an allegiance to a larger political cause as well as difficult to codify values like the pledge to “respect one’s terroir”, “respect for tradition” as well as commitments to hold tastings and to “take pleasure in presenting the fruit of one’s labor and one’s culture” (a fascinating French word for both the English world culture and also for agricultural techniques). By buying such wines you can help to support these values, while this label does not automatically increase the price of these wines.
Moving to the main label itself on the center of the bottle, you’ll see that often French wine labelling is increasingly moving away from the fancy fonts and pictures of luxurious chateaus. Whether a marketing ploy, an attempt to make their wine look more hip or to be eye-catching in large shops littered with bottles adorned by sketches of chateaus, the label itself can show some of the vineyard’s sensibilities. One of the best vineyards in the Cahors AOC, Clos Troteligotte, has a wine called K-pot with the catchphrase Sans Protection, which means roughly in English “without the use of a condom/protection”, because it is a red wine made with “natural” yeast and without sulfites. They are discarding all the winemaker’s tricks of “protection” of a uniform product which usually relies on sulfites and industrial yeasts. Needless to say, with such a sense of humor they do not put grand chateaus on their bottles.
While American wine labels often tout the grape varietal or varietals used in the wine, the French instead often label wine by different types of protected geographic labels. Champagne is not merely a sparkling wine made with Champagne techniques. Instead it has that title because it comes from the Champagne region of France and adheres to many, many rules that govern the entire process, including a set number of grape varietals that one can grow. Therefore by knowing about the AOC you will know about the grape varietals if they are not actually listed on the bottle. Only if vineyards follow these well-defined rules can they gain the lucrative appellation d'origine contrôlée (designation of controlled origin), the AOC label for their region. By 2005, there were 472 AOC wines in France, which are geographically delimited. While there are many large AOCs that very widely in quality (even the not massive Cahors AOC area has roughly 180 different wineries, each making many different wines), the AOC is often a mark of quality.
It is the highest rank a region can achieve. While not a foolproof way of selecting a wine, the AOC label is a safe bet. If you can combine it with a recoltant and/or vignerons indépendant label, then it’s even better. Many of the labels discussed here are not mutually exclusive.
Below AOC, there is the indication géographique protégée (protected geographical désignation), (IGP) which often is not as strict as an AOC, but can produce wonderfully drinkable wines like the whites and rosés produced within the Côtes du Lot IGP. As the French government modified its classifications to be in accordance with European Union-wide rules, the IGP classification replaced the vin de pays (regional wine) labelling system in France. These IGP wines are definitely worth checking out if one is burdened by too many choices in the wine shop.
Finally, there is merely vin de France (French wine) which does not have to abide by any of the strict AOC or less strict IGP criteria and is merely wine produced in France. The main label cannot indicate any other geographical information, even though clearly it was produced in some specific locale. Therefore this vin de France can be used for wine grown outside any AOC or IGP geographic area or even from wine within these areas but for people who do not want to abide by the grape varietals or practices associated with AOC or IGPs. For these reasons, this is the category that has the widest variation. You can find fascinating wine made by rebels who buck trends and produce a vin de France that is much better than many of the AOC producers, just as you can find boring industrial wine that is cheap for a reason and sold under this label. I would suggest that you should do some research before buying a more expensive wine labelled vin de France as it is so much less defined than an AOC or even an IGP.
A growing trend in French wine is organic production (vin biologique/vin bio). French organic standards also carry the European organic label (AB). Winemaking and winegrowing includes a surprising number of herbicides and pesticides, so organic wine is well worth considering. The Nature and Progress label (Nature et Progrès) is even stricter in some ways than the organic label. This wine contains less sulfites, often uses ‘wild’ yeasts and the picking of the grapes is often done by hand (vendange à la main), which has long been a reason for the community to join together and party after the work was done, but has grown increasingly rare amidst a highly mechanized wine industry. In select cases vineyards will not have the Nature and Progess label but instead have a vendange à la main (harvested by hand) label.
Finally there is even an incipient certification scheme for biodynamic wine (Biodyvin), a system of viticultural that conceptualizes the farm as linked not only to its surroundings but as well as to happenings in the universe. It is a kooky and engrossing concept, and one that we will cover in a later post. This Biodyvin label for these biodynamic wines is uncommon but the popularity of these wines is justifiably growing as they are often incredibly unique and in some cases have the vast complexity of a good gueuze or lambic beer.
Even with all of these labels, and I am surely still missing some, but must stop somewhere... here’s the takeaway...You can see how the different wine labels are trying to achieve different things. The recoltant and vignerons indépendant labels are trying to protect the amazing combined abilities of viniculture and viticulture in one place. The AOC and IGP labels are trying to create and defend a regional character for wines based on a codified practices and grape varietals, while the label Vin de France treats French wine as something of a singularly wonderful assemblage. While these labels are more concerned with political-economy, organic, Nature and Progress and Biodyvin labels to varying degrees are a critique of the negative environmental effects of winegrowing and winemaking. You can mix and match labels. A single wine might carry nearly all these labels at the same time. One does not have to choose geography over political economy over the environment. While finding the perfect match of labelling might take some time, many will be delicious wines that are trying to save the glories of French independent viticultural/viniculture all while limiting their negative ecological impacts. All in all, let French wine labelling guide an enriching drinking experience and not to overly complicate it.
Finally there is even an incipient certification scheme for biodynamic wine (Biodyvin), a system of viticultural that conceptualizes the farm as linked not only to its surroundings but as well as to happenings in the universe. It is a kooky and engrossing concept, and one that we will cover in a later post. This Biodyvin label for these biodynamic wines is uncommon but the popularity of these wines is justifiably growing as they are often incredibly unique and in some cases have the vast complexity of a good gueuze or lambic beer.
Even with all of these labels, and I am surely still missing some, but must stop somewhere... here’s the takeaway...You can see how the different wine labels are trying to achieve different things. The recoltant and vignerons indépendant labels are trying to protect the amazing combined abilities of viniculture and viticulture in one place. The AOC and IGP labels are trying to create and defend a regional character for wines based on a codified practices and grape varietals, while the label Vin de France treats French wine as something of a singularly wonderful assemblage. While these labels are more concerned with political-economy, organic, Nature and Progress and Biodyvin labels to varying degrees are a critique of the negative environmental effects of winegrowing and winemaking. You can mix and match labels. A single wine might carry nearly all these labels at the same time. One does not have to choose geography over political economy over the environment. While finding the perfect match of labelling might take some time, many will be delicious wines that are trying to save the glories of French independent viticultural/viniculture all while limiting their negative ecological impacts. All in all, let French wine labelling guide an enriching drinking experience and not to overly complicate it.
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