Up to a third of wines sold under France's regional appellation system might be from an entirely different region, according to a French consumers' group. The Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée, or AOC, once a gold stamp of origin and quality, is fast turning into a national joke, UFC-Que Choisir said.
It claimed this was due in large part to AOC award panels made up of local wine professionals with vested interests.Unscrupulous "judges" on local panels were accused of giving lesser wines the prestigious AOC label in the face of increasing competition from New World wines, whose world market share has risen sharply in recent years. Slack controls saw 99 per cent of all candidate wines awarded their AOC label in 2005.
As a result, a third of AOC wines were "sub-standard" and of dubious geographical origin, UFC found. Alain Bazot, the head of UFC, said: "For a number of years, we've seen a steady fall in quality in a number of AOCs, which has undermined consumer confidence."
The association called on the national appellation institute to take urgent steps to correct the situation, preferably by removing fraudulent or poor quality wines from AOC lists. It warned that it may be "the last chance" for the system to reform. AOC wines, which come from 470 regions, account for 44 per cent of all French wine production, a share that has doubled since the 1970s.
Apparently, this is not the first time the French wine labeling system has been caught playing fast and dirty with the labels either, but really, who is actually surprised by this? All of which means this is an outstanding time to start checking out the alternatives to French wines…like say trying Israeli ones. Carmel has become one of my Israeli favourites.
4 comments:
Or simply limit your purchase of French wines to the dozens of excellent varieties available in North America, produced by the better know and entirely reputable wineries.
A less politically fraught solution, perhaps.
About Israeli wines, if you are ready to splurge money on this:
Rogov's Guide to Israeli Wines 2007
http://www.amazon.com/Rogovs-Guide-Israeli-Wines-2007/dp/1592641717
Still, you know, French wines are a head above* the rest of the world. But yes, one needs to be careful...
No matter how much it pains one to say so ;-)
Balbulican, you do know this is the Zionist zone??? right??
Thanks SnoopytheGoon, I had no idea there was a guide published. I feel I scored big, now I will have more to harass the government run wine store clerks about.
Umm...yeah. But I've never found that political affiliation has much effect on the taste of wine or food. I don't much like the Chinese government, but I do like Tsingtao beer.
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