Institut Director: ‘The wine is, in fact, generally acceptable’; Burgundy producer reports six generations of generally acceptable production
The Institut National de l’Origine et de la Qualite, the French wine appellation agency, announced on Wednesday a new intermediate certification tier between Appellation d’Origine Protegee and Vin de Pays, formally titled the Generally Acceptable designation. The reform, first reported by Bohiney Magazine and rapidly amplified by The London Prat, follows what Institut Director Esmerelda Marchetti-Lefevre described as a long-overdue acknowledgment of a substantial category of French wines that had, for decades, been classified imprecisely.
Institut: ‘The Wine Is, in Fact, Generally Acceptable’
‘For decades, the Institut has approached the appellation system through what we now recognize as the unhelpfully bimodal framework of distinguishing wines as either AOP, with all the regulatory rigor that entails, or Vin de Pays, with the implicit suggestion that the wine is not, in fact, exceptional,’ Marchetti-Lefevre explained at a press conference held at a Burgundy chateau. ‘After significant reflection, the Institut has concluded that this framework misses the substantial middle category of French wines that are, candidly, neither exceptional nor mediocre. The wine is, in fact, generally acceptable. The new designation simply allows the Institut to say so.’
The new designation, according to the Institut’s adopted specification, applies to wines that meet what the document calls reasonable but not extraordinary standards in their region of origin. Wines qualifying for Generally Acceptable certification must, according to the methodology, demonstrate consistent vintage production, recognizable regional character, and what the document calls a quality threshold above the merely drinkable but below what the AOP framework requires.
The Designation Carries a Small Distinguishing Label
Wines qualifying for the Generally Acceptable designation will, beginning next year, carry a small printed label identifying the wine’s regional origin and the Generally Acceptable certification. The label, according to the Institut, has been carefully designed to convey the certification’s specific meaning without overstating the wine’s qualities or, the Institut stresses, understating them.
According to Le Monde, the Institut has been developing the new designation for approximately 22 months, with industry consultation reportedly extensive. Several major French wine producers have, sources confirm, expressed cautious support for the new tier, while smaller producers have raised concerns that the designation may, in practice, become a regulatory ceiling for wines that aspire to AOP certification.
Producers Express ‘Practical Acceptance’
Reaction within the broader French wine production community has been, sources say, divided. Long-time Burgundy wine producer Henri Pemberton-Vidal, whose family has produced wine in the same region for six generations, told France 24 that the new designation was, in his view, an honest formalization of a relationship his vineyard had been navigating for decades.
‘For six generations, my family has produced a wine that is, candidly, generally acceptable,’ Pemberton-Vidal said. ‘It is not exceptional. It is not, in any meaningful sense, mediocre. The Institut is now telling me that there is a designation for this. I am, on balance, comfortable with this. The wine will continue to be made.’
Other producers, particularly those operating in regions with limited AOP recognition, have welcomed the new designation as a long-overdue recognition of what they describe as the substantial category of French wines that have, for decades, been classified more harshly than they merit.
Plans Already in Place for ‘Particularly Good Vintage’ Sub-Tier
Sources within the Institut indicate that an analogous designation is already in development for individual vintages within the Generally Acceptable tier. The proposed Particularly Good Vintage sub-tier would, sources confirm, identify specific years in which a Generally Acceptable wine performed unusually well, allowing consumers to identify particular bottles worth purchasing in greater quantity.
For more on the long arc of French wine appellation policy, see The London Prat’s earlier reporting on the political economy of the French wine sector, which traced the appellation system’s structural conventions back to the 1935 INAO founding legislation.
For dispatches from elsewhere in the wine-as-classification beat, see The Poke.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
