Understanding Appellations and Wine Regulations: Outside Europe
In Europe, appellation regulations are strict and steadfast, defining the nature of a region: the geography, grape varieties, yields, and styles of wine. Outside of Europe, the rules are usually less strict. The two different approaches lead to—and result from—contrasting attitudes to regulating wine.
The personality of the USA is predicated on the idea of liberty, but that leads to a lot of contradictions. There is a deep suspicion of government across the country, which in part is due to the complete incompetence of government agencies (the joke is the only reason Republicans exist is to prove that government doesn’t work). That’s seen in the oversight of wine regions, which is run by a federal organisation called the Bureau for Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), covering three completely different categories which have no connection. As frustrating as the European appellation system can be, at least there’s a direct agricultural connection that has nothing to do with guns.
In the USA, the equivalent of an appellation is an AVA (American Viticultural Area). Although the geographical boundaries of AVAs are firmly set, everything else is loose. AVAs are quite often political or commercial. The Northern Sonoma AVA was designed to appease Gallo, the largest producer in the world. In contrast, there have been new AVAs created in Washington which have one small producer within them, in order to give them a regional designation to help sell their wines.
The following graphic, taken from UC Davis, shows the random nature of US AVAs: it’s only when we get to the fourth largest that a recognisable wine-producing region is found. That’s Columbia Valley, which covers 99% of all Washington State’s wine regions. Meanwhile, in ninth place for the largest US AVAs is Puget Sound, which accounts for 1% of all Washington wine. In the top ten largest AVAs, there’s only one in California even though the state produces 90% of US wine. The graphic accounts for the size of the AVA rather than the volume of production, but either way AVAs do not always directly reflect quality.
All of these AVAs serve a purpose: they give a name to a place which consumers can recognise, but they don’t tell us much else other than that. Australia has a similar issue with GIs (Geographical Indication), which are their equivalent. They were reluctantly created in the 1990s, as to sell wines to the EU there must be a geographical indication—hence Australia’s cheeky reaction to name the designations as GIs. But in creating the GIs in the 90s, Australian producers managed to be quite European: the arguments over the borders of Coonawarra became convoluted and held back the introduction of the GI system for some years. Definitions of place become immediately complicated as soon as any regional designation is introduced.
South Africa embraced the equivalent of an appellation system before other non-European countries. It’s a tiered and slightly confusing system with the aim of expressing the country’s regionality. It’s complicated to explain the differences between a Geographical Unit, a Region, a District, and a Ward, but the system established in the 1970s provided a foundation after the emergence of South Africa out of Apartheid in the 1990s. South African wine then was based on inexpensive wine, but to help its development there was already an organised, regionally-based system to promote the country’s best wines.
All this sums up the complicated structure of appellation systems. New Zealand’s is still underdeveloped, but it needs to be formalised for international sales and for a greater appreciation of where the wines come from. Chile’s wines can seem quite generic, but the DOs give a sense of place in a geographically diverse country.
But there is always the underlying question: do appellation rules help or inhibit producers? England is the next testing point to answer this question, as the young industry evolves within the context of Brexit. Producers will no longer be bound by EU rules, except when exporting to the EU. In an international world, that’s a contradiction in appellation rules: they aren’t just created for local, regional standards, they also exist to provide a framework for exports.
Should an AVA in the USA be governed by precise rules on which grape varieties should be planted? Absolutely not. Should these regulations be governed by federal organisations who know absolutely nothing about wine? Again, absolutely not. And that’s a continual concern every producer around the world complains about.
