Unraveling French Wine Labels (Part 1)

If you're an American, French wine labels are likely a nuisance. They don't tell you the things you are used to knowing. Instead, they tell what French regulations require and for an American who doesn't know, they confuse us about to death. My suspicion is that this is a major reason that French wines don't sell as much as they might in the US.

What are you used to seeing on a label? Likely, you look for the grapes or grapes, the name of the region it comes from, maybe the vintage, and perhaps a cool looking label. You also likely look for the name of the winery and the name of the wine particularly if it is has a cool name. What you don't look for are things like Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC) or Indication Géographique Protégée (IGP) which is one level below AOC. (In case you are wondering, those are the wines that are allowed to carry the designation of a particular region such as Pauillac, Montrachet, or Brouilly as examples.)

As Alice might have said, from here it gets curiouser and curiouser. Suppose a wine says Grand Vin de Bordeaux. What does that mean? Well, it means literally grand wine of Bordeaux. And, looking at it you can probably tell if it is red or white. 

Let's assume it's red. Great. The classic red grapes of Bordeaux are Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdot. So, you look at the bottle and you don't know which grape it's weighted toward or do you?

Well, if you know that it's a left bank wine (rive gaunche), it tends to predominate Cabernet Sauvignon and if it's right bank (rive droit), it tends to predoninate Merlot. That's helpful. 

So, we look on the label for words like Left Bank or Rive Gauche, but alas they are not there. What we do see are words like Grand Vin de Bordeaux, Premier Cru, and AOC Pomerol. 

Is that helpful?

It might be. If you know what that tells you.

The fact that is says AOC means that it is from a geographical area of the highest quality. That it is Premier Cru means that it is in the highest tier of the 1855 Classification. 

But, I like my wines big and bold and chewy and that means Cabernet. I wonder if this wine is Cabernet-based. And, since it's so expensive, I can't take a chance to find out.

Well, it turns out that Pomerol is Libournais. It's one of the Right Bank AOC, meaning that most wines from Pomerol are Merlot-based. And, while I'm going to tell you that Premier Cru from Pomerol is likely to be a life-changing wine experience, if what you really wanted was a Cabernet-based wine, 

Well, did you spend the money? Did you spend it on my word that this might be the finest Merlot-based wine you've ever tasted? A case might be nice. And, it will only set you back a little over $3,000. There are worse prices. However, that's not the case price for the best recent vintages, it's the bottle price.

Tomorrow, we'll continue digging into these mysterious French wine labels.



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