European wine making countries have been using wine laws to protect wine growing regions for many decades. Yet it was not until the year 2008 that a general appellation system for the EU has been implemented. The already existing names of appellations in different countries were included in this new system.

Essentially, we divide two categories of quality wine and plain wine. Majority of the wine consumed will be sold under quality wine. The category of plain is mostly used for table wines or bulk wines, that are sold on a very large scale.

In this topic we will focus further on the category of quality wine. Quality wine gets divided into two levels:

• Protected Designation of Origin (PDO)
• Protected Geographical Indication (PGI)

For both of these levels the wine comes from a known area of origin. The main difference will be that PDO comes from a more specific area, with stricter rules than the PGI. Note that these terms will have different names in different countries, that will be explained per country. Different organizations will check if a certain wine will be eligible for the title of PDO, and will check on the usage of certain grape varieties, number of vines per hectare, method of pruning etc. An example of a PDO is a wine coming from the village Meursault in Burgundy.

The PGI has less of these strict rules and will reflect a larger area, for example wine of Languedoc.

Especially in the PDO there are more and deeper levels of origin going to specific to villages, wineries, and even certain plots within a winery. These deeper levels will be explained per country and per region.

The European Appellation system is used as the basis for may EU countries, including France. Here, the PDO is called the Appellation d’Origine Protegée (AOP) or traditional the Appellation d’Origine Controlee (AOC). The PGI is the Indication Geographique Protegée (IGP) or Vin de Pays.

A wine (or even cheese, butter, or other products) will receive the status of AOP when it is a reflection of the region it is coming from. In this way of thinking, it means that a wine from the same grape variety will taste differently in a different region. The borders of these AOPs will be specifically determined and rules, considering grape varieties and ways of harvest, will be determined as well. These can differ AOP per AOP.

Every winegrowing region in France falls under the AOP and is a regional AOP of its own. This includes following regions:

• Champagne
• Alsace
• Vallée du Loire
• Bordeaux
• Sud-Ouest
• Languedoc-Roussillon
• Provence
• Vallée du Rhône
• Corsica
• Jura- Savoie
• Bourgogne (Burgundy)

These regional appellations can be divided into different sub-regions or wine styles within the larger one. For instance, Alsace will be divided into the AOPs of AOP Alsace, AOP Crémant d’Alsace. While Champagne will only be produced under AOP Champagne. In Bordeaux the sub-regions will be referred to as districts. Certain villages within a subregion will designate themselves in terms of quality and will be classified as a higher AOP, the village-AOP. Within these villages certain better and the best vineyards can reach Premier and Grand Cru. Especially in Bordeaux and Burgundy, where this is a legal term, referring to a higher level of quality. In this case the name of the vineyard will be mentioned on the label.

This is a general explanation of the French appellation system, of course within every region there is a more in-depth appellation system present. For that information I happily refer to the page of wine regions, where you can find more information about different regions.

In Italy the PDO is divided into two levels:

• Demoninazione di Origine Controllata (DOC)
• Demoninazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG)

The reason for this is that there is a high number of DOC-wines in Italy, so certain vineyards and regions found the need to separate them from the DOC as an elite group the DOCG.

The PGI is called the IGT (Indicazione Geografica Tipica). There is a lower level as well, referring to the level of table wine, called the Vini Generici, generic wine that is not specified. The level between the Generici and the IGT is the Vini Generici con Annata e Vitigno. This is the generic level with the mention of vintage and grape variety.

All these levels of classifications do not always reflect the quality in Italy. Sometimes the rules can be so strict, that vineyards intentionally choose to get declassified in order to get more freedom. Certain Vini Generici can be of higher quality than a DOC or DOCG with the matching price of course. Think of the Super Tuscans.

DOC and DOCG have strict regulations in terms of the usage of certain varieties and aging periods. DOCG will be selected on flavour and representation of the region and grape variety. After a consistent accomplishment of 5 years as a DOC, the DOCG status can be achieved. Poor results can lead to declassification.

The wine regions of Italy containing both DOC and DOCG wines include:

• Lombardia
• Trentino-Alto Adige
• Valle d’Aosta
• Piemonte
• Fruili-Venezia Giulia
• Veneto
• Toscana
• Umbria
• Liguria
• Lazio
• Campania
• Basilicata
• Calabria
• Emilia-Romagna
• Marche
• Abruzzo
• Molise
• Puglia
• Sardegna
• Sicilia

Certain terms will be added on the label as well:

• Classico: When a wine comes from the most historical part within a region.
• Superiore: A higher level of alcohol than the minimum required for that region.
• Riserva: refers to a longer aging on oak.
• Frizzante/Spumante: term for sparkling wine. Spumante contains more carbon dioxide.
• Recioto: Wine made from dried grapes. The style can go from sweet to dry.

Much like in Italy, the PDO gets split into two different levels as well. We divide the following:

• Denominación de Origen (DO)
• Denominación de Origen Calificada (DOCa)

Unlike Italy, there are only two regions that have distinguished themselves from the other DO’s, and those are the DOCa Rioja and DOCa Priorat.

Both the DO’s and the two DOCa’s are regularly checked by the Consejo Regulador, to ensure that all DO’s live up to their status.

The PGI is called IGP and stands for Indicatión Geográfica Protegida. These wines do not fall under any DO but still have a distinctive character that reflects the region they are coming from.

Vino de Mesa is the term for the generic wines that have blended multiple regions. It is made in Spain but cannot display any information about the harvest. A step up is Vino Comercal, local wines that can display more information like vintage and a broader region, but are in terms of quality no better than the Vino de Mesa.

Apart from above discussed appellations there is also the Vino de Pago and Vino de Pago Calificada. This refers to wines coming from a certain vineyard. They can be part of a DO or DOCa but sometimes can exist on their own.

The wine regions of Spain are divided 19 autonomías. Each autonomía is responsible for its own culture, language and smaller economy. Mostly the wine region will share a border with the autonomía, but sometimes it will exceed this.
The different wine regions and autonomías are:

• Galicia
• País Vasco
• Asturias
• Cantabria
• La Rioja
• Navarra
• Castilla y León
• Cataluña
• Castilla-La Mancha
• Madrid
• Extremadura
• Murcia
• Islas Baleares
• Valencia
• Andaluciía
• Islas Canarías

The sparkling wine of Spain Cava has its own classification, DO Cava, and can be made in 5 different regions. Most of the Cava is coming from Cataluña, near Barcelona.

The legislation states that also the length of aging can be mentioned on the wine label, but when it does, it must follow strict rules as well.

• Joven: a young wine that needs to be enjoyed in its youth. No more than 6 months oak aging, or none at all.
• Crianza : two full years of aging for red wine, with over 6 months on oak. The rest of the time the wine needs to age in the bottle. White and rosado can age for 18 months, with 3 months of oak.
• Reserva: three years for the reds, with at least one year on oak and one year in the bottle. White and rosado can do with 18 months of cellar aging and of that, 6 months on oak.
• Gran Reserva: This is the longest aging. Red wines age for 5 years in total, 2 years on oak and 3 years in the bottle. White and rosado age a total of 4 years, with 6 months oak.

The DOCa Rioja has the same terms in the legislation in terms of length of aging. However stricter regulations apply with even longer aging periods.