Word of the Week: Appellation

Chambolle-Musigny. Ribera del Duero. Napa Valley. What do all of these places have in common? Beyond simply cultivating grapes, they are legally protected and regulated appellations. An appellation is a wine-growing region with delimited borders. Typically, but not always contiguous, appellations come in sizes large and small, and can incorporate a series of sub-appellations within them. Gualtallary , for example, is a small sub-appellation of the Uco Valley , which itself sits within the larger Mendoza appellation of Argentina. A bottle label will often feature an appellation’s name, providing drinkers with the geographic origins of a given wine. Each major wine-producing country has established its own appellation systems, but the French Appellation d’Origine Côntrolée (AOC) series, first codified into law in the 1930s, has long served as the model. Italy’s Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC), Portugal’s Denominação de Origem Controlada, and several others are all born in the image of France’s AOCs. Traditionally, these appellations are bound by unifying features in their terroir , promising consumers the evocation of a “sense of place” in wines that bear their name on a label. To preserve the character of these regions, many appellations, particularly in Europe, regulate the methods by which their wines can be created – dictating everything from the permitted grape varieties to viticultural practices to the shape of the bottle, in some cases. New World appellation laws are less rigid, and rarely reach beyond the specification of geographical boundaries. The United States’ American Viticultural Areas (AVAs) or Australia’s Geographic Indication (GI) systems, for example, are far more flexible than their European counterparts, paving the way for innovation and a greater diversity of wines from any given appellation.