Facts About French Wine
French wine is very popular and often served as a dinner wine. The quality of French wine is divided into four categories and comes in an array of different varieties. These varieties come from different regions of France depending on what type of grape is grown and where it thrives.
Quality Levels
- Appellation d'Origine Controlee, or AOC, is wine that comes from a defined area. This is considered the highest quality in French wine due to the controlled blends and production methods.
- Vin Delimite de Qualite Superieure is an intermediate ranking for French wine. It is not used very much and is less controlled than the AOC in wine production and blends.
- Vin de Pays labels wine by regions. This rank of wine is required to have certain mixes or blends. Testing is often required to ensure the quality of these wines.
- Vin de Table is labeled by producer name only. Although the quality is not poor, it does rank the lowest on the quality levels.
Top Five Varieties
- Merlot
- Grenache
- Trebbiano
- Syrah
- Carignan
Wine Regions
- Bordeaux is home to 12,000 winegrowers. Eighty percent of the wine made there is red wine. A normal blend for this region consists of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc with an added flavor of Petit Verdo/Malbec.
- Burgundy is where you can find Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Gamay grapes. Burgundy wines are also referred to as Beaujolais and Chablis.
- Rhone is the region where Grenache, Syrah and Viognier wines come from. Hermitage and Chateauneuf-du-Pape wines come from this region also.
- Alsace produces mainly white wines. These wines include Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc and Gewurtztraminer.
- Loire produces popular white wines. Sancerre, Pouilly-Fume and Vouvray are well-known wines in this region.
- Provence is known for its rose wines.
- Champagne is known for Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier wines.
- Langeudoc is the largest wine producing region in the world. Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Mourvedre, Grenache, and Syrah come from this area.