French Wine Starts Speaking American
Recently at the Philadelphia wine bar Tria, a group of French people in their 40s were overheard discussing the English language while one proudly showed his Pennsylvania driver’s license. At the next table two American women were chatting about the attributes of the French wine they had chosen. The French, it seems, really are becoming more American and Americans are becoming more French. As you can imagine, in the world of wine this is becoming a real issue for the French.
For starters, the French are drinking much less. At 73 bottles a year (2003) they are drinking half as much as they did in the 1960s. And this trend is expected to continue. But drinking wine is a French institution. A wine is paired with every French dish. It is presque obligatoire to have wine with your meal. In America, the history of prohibition and Puritan foundation can make wine buying as difficult as obtaining a firearm. And yet wine consumption in the US is on the rise. A 2006 survey pinned wine consumption in the US at 16 bottles per year per person (Wine Institute). This consumption rate of course pales in comparison to the French. But with a population 4.7 times larger, the US is expected to be the world’s biggest wine importer in 2010 (Vinexpo/IWSR study).
The flailing national wine market has become so worrisome in France that they have actually come up with a term for it, La Crise (the crisis). To remedy La Crise, the nation is putting its hopes into the European Union’s new labeling system. According to bureaucrats at Viniflhor (France’s current wine regulatory body) the new system will allow French wine to compete more fairly in the world’s wine market. The major marketing problem for French wines in the global market is that French wine appellation law prohibits the grape variety name from appearing on the label. Currently quality French wine is sold by terroir, a geographic wine identity term that represents a climate, a soil type, a tradition and therefore a quality of product. But outside of France, the wines that sell are the ones marked ‘Sauvignon Blanc’ or ‘Merlot’ because consumers want to know what they are buying. Not many people know, for example, that the Burgundy appellation Pouilly-Fuissé is made from the Chardonnay grape, so naming it thus loses the customer who does not know that it is in fact a Chardonnay. But France wants potential consumers in future to be able to choose by region, as well as by grape variety.
The French labeling reform, approved on December 17, 2007 goes into effect in August of this year. This reform will transform France’s current wine classification system by integrating it with 1992 quality policy legislation, spear-headed by the EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Mariann Fischer-Boel. The AOC appellation d’origine controlée has been the marker for high quality French wine since its creation in 1855. AOC wines will now bear the AOP appellation d’origine protégée (Protected Designation of Origin or PDO in English), and will finally be authorized to put the grape variety on the label.
On the other hand the American wine industry, which had initially marketed its wines purely by grape variety, created American Viticultural Areas (AVA), which correspond to the French idea of terroir, in the 1980’s. So they’ve moved towards a system that mirrors the French, one based on geographic identity. It is telling though that the governmental organization that regulates wine appellation in the US also regulates tobacco and firearms. America has a long way to go before sharing the French appreciation of wine and its identity as a cultural institution rather than a vice to hide in the closet.
In the wine world these changes are a hot issue for discussion. Wine producers and wine students, like myself, worry over the future role of wine in society. France’s move to make their wine more accessible and understandable for the world market exposes the need for societies to understand each other when it comes to many things we take for granted. I think this new labeling system is a step towards badly-needed translation. And I think that Americans are ready to listen.
