Andrew Jefford: France's wine appellations need reform

France's wine appellations: Then and now

Appellations celebrate their 90th birthday next month. The first six of what (using EU nomenclature) we now refer to as appellations d’origine protegée or APs came into being on 15 May 1936.

A torrent followed by 1938, including most Bordeaux and Burgundy appellations. This was a decade of soggy weather, depressed markets, struggling sales and gathering political storms, though the principal motive for creating ‘names of controlled origin’ was to fight against post-phylloxera fraud.

Guess what? French wine now finds itself… in the middle of a decade of depressed markets, struggling sales and political storms; the miserable weather of the 1930s has become the wild, unpredictable and increasingly torrid weather of the 2020s.

It’s impossible to imagine wine creation today without what have become more generally known as ‘geographical indications’ (GIs – modelled on APs, but often with looser rules). Instituting a workable system of GIs marks the passage to adulthood for every aspiring wineproducing nation.

The dossiers prepared to obtain French appellation status build on centuries of quiet work by local growers: they protect communal property rights, but they also conserve cultural wealth. In a world where brands are king, appellations (brands for the brandless) help open markets for small growers.

French wine appellations facing their 'di Lampedusa moment'

When I last touched on this topic five years ago, wine (a notable consolation during the Covid-19 epidemic) was selling well, though I pointed out then that appellations will decay without maintenance and revision.

Now, amid the multiple crises affecting French wine, appellations are facing their di Lampedusa moment. ‘Se vogliamo che tutto rimanga com’è, bisogna che tutto cambi’, says Tancredi Falconeri in Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s Il Gattopardo (‘The Leopard’): ‘If we want things to stay as they are, everything needs to change.’

To explain why, let me share a personal anniversary: my family and I have now lived in France for 15 years. There have been many positive surprises: the health service is magnificent, as is France’s infrastructure, its care for patrimony, its consensus that those who need support should have it, and the discipline of many of its institutions and state actors.

But even modest earners are taxed heavily, the bureaucratic hurdles of everday life are onerous, its political class prefers posture to responsibility and compromise, and its otherwise admirable educational system punishes imagination.

Apply this to France’s wine scene; speak to any grower. They’ll complain about regulatory rigidity, a colossal bureaucratic burden and the difficulty of making changes or implementing innovations; many of the most creative have quit the appellation system; producers below prestige strata struggle to stay afloat, crushed by ever-rising costs and social charges.

But when problems accrue, the expectation is always that the state should solve the problem: the trap of learned helplessness. The French culture of anger (rarely helpful, even when righteous) often then kicks in, together with anti-democratic rituals of direct action and strikes. Attempts at sane reform are suffocated by political hysteria. The result is a noisy immobilisme (‘stasis’).

Imagine if France’s wine sector was to lead the way for the nation. All appellations would be handed over to local growers to run as they see fit, with the option of a complete reset of every regulatory stipulation in the cahiers des charges: the appellation rule books.

The alcohol communication stipulations of the 1991 Loi Evin legislation would be repealed, enabling growers once again to take pride in their contribution to the nation’s life, and talk warmly, creatively and responsibly about the intricate richness of France’s wine traditions.

The French state would indeed help those who need to cease wine production exit with dignity… but otherwise retreat from economic paternalism and regulatory overkill. Imagine.

In my glass this month

Languedoc’s Domaine de la Dourbie is a model of imagination: every cuvée is astutely thought through, making the most of its old-vine patrimony. Its top white L’Intemporal is the best (and least austere) Grenache Gris I know. The 2021 has fennel-and-quince perfume and is mellow, succulent and deep; a little orange creeps in on the palate. Look for the gorgeously fruited Oscar cuvées (UK importer Moreno); a cunning Terret-based pét-nat called Tuf; and an exciting range from the newly acquired Mas Moustache, too.

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