The Foundations of the Denomination of Origin Wines purposes

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The Foundations of the Denomination of Origin Wines purposes

No production of luxury in France is not subject to such control today than fine wine and brand-spirits.
This control was not imposed on producers, but claimed by them to try to end a crisis more serious, caused by innumerable abuses and which would sink one of the main riches of France and one of its glories national.
The legislation that established this control is not born of improvisation; it is the final end of an evolution that lasted thirty years, leading to Parliament legislative proposals, speeches and more reporting.
The crisis the current regime ended could have been avoided; It was prompted by a clumsy legislation, ignorant of reality, causing the most serious riots that have occurred in the French Agriculture.
We will see that the legislation on designations of origin suffered a series of mistakes doing all of the same cause.
The work from which it emerged that legislation had the serious defect of ignoring reality. They were based on purely theoretical concepts, bookish or legal. It was to govern natural facts, the conditions of production, the human side, that is to say, the psychology of men who were to obey their laws.
In short, we will see during this work to oppose two different theories: one I call the realist thesis because it takes account of natural facts, is summarized in a few lines:
The appellation of origin is not a simple indication of source; he clings to a certain idea of ​​originality and quality.
The thesis which I call realistic does not separate the original idea of ​​the quality idea.
In front of her was erected another, completely ignoring the facts and simply taking in the words: designation of origin indicates the geographical origin; do not have to consider anything in it and just protect the source without thinking of the other characteristics of the wine.
When the first alone could maintain the quality of wines and give security, both the consumer and producer honest, he was ruled out; this is the second, which, incredibly, has long prevailed.
In the protection of appellations of origin, consider two orders of ideas: it must provide consumers with guarantees of authenticity: it is necessary that the wine actually comes from the region designated by the designation. But this is not enough: in the scope of a geographic region so designated, there is almost always next to the land suitable for the production of fine wines, of a different nature soil, only own culture grassland or cereal, or even wetlands.
The soil is one of the factors of originality and quality of the product, common sense indicates that a vineyard planted in unsuitable land does not deserve the appellation of a region renowned. It is also possible that in this region, not plant the low-yielding grape varieties whose wines have established the reputation of the appellation, but vulgar varieties, high-efficiency, which can only produce quality wines lower.
It is therefore not enough to guarantee the authenticity of the product, it is also important to ensure the quality, to the extent that it depends on the soil and grape varieties.

These two kinds of guarantees should have been linked in the legislation from the beginning; the fact was unfortunately not so.
So there is to consider and protect in the appellation of origin:

The 1905 law

It can be said of the Act of 1 August 1905 that economically it was a more perfect and more effective; it was the basis for the organization of Fraud, made increasingly frequent and dangerous by the progress of science; she saved from the Great Depression of ordinary wine fraud.
But when the wines and their denominations of origin, already overused, she merely express an intention and we will see, from the beginning, it is oriented in an unfortunate direction.
The delimitation designations regions was a result of this law.
The purpose of the 1905 law is to curb fraud, it was necessary to legally define fair product, specify what the region which alone had the right to bear the name of a specified origin.

In 1906, the France Winemakers Society organized a sort of Designation of Origin of the Congress in which the representatives of the major regions of fine wines from France were asked to describe the names or trademarks of their wine region (the word appellation of origin was not yet commonly used).
I introduced him a detailed report on the wines of the Gironde.
In my mind, it's not the original only that the law should defend, but the quality, or better to say, the characteristics of the wine that make it unique.
I also tied-great importance to the test of tasting and especially to natural factors determining the originality and quality of the wine, soil and grape varieties. But I wanted to draw attention to the danger that there would be to grant an appellation of origin only because of the origin, regardless of the quality of the guarantees due to these natural factors: the grape and the soil .
I said in this regard: (excerpt) "Indeed, today marks of origin will be defended, it would be possible for some owners, it must be admitted, to plant vines in high-yield and poor quality some unsuitable for an area renowned soils so they would wines of absolute authenticity, but of inferior quality, able to disqualify the region.
Attaching such importance to the quality, I could not overlook the importance of tasting and I spoke in the following terms: The Court will not be assured that the wine actually comes from the place that bears the name by a only way: tasting, aided by chemical analysis. Studies should be undertaken to determine the boundaries between the various components of the wine.
To this end, a committee of brokers, owners, dealers in each region concerned, collaborate effectively with oenologists chemists.
The cooperation of all the factors of the wine gives everyone a clean taste, not only tasting can recognize characters that are common to all wines from a wide area, as is the Médoc, for example, but it allows to distinguish the special stamp added some purely local influences, restricted to a commune, a local, single thought that makes connoisseurs attach so much value to the sincerity of the brand.
Tasting, like all arts, has a purely subjective value that depends on how it is applied; but there is no lack, in every region of proven experts and acknowledged probity, capable of becoming as strong as conscientious experts.
The new requirements that will emerge from this still possible test of tasting will be for the owners an incentive to do well and a backup of the reputation of their regional appellation.
There was, moreover, in the reports that I presented, a critique of boundaries by the administration and I asked for the first time the idea of ​​a delimitation by the courts. "

The legislative work

 Administrative phase

 Revolts of Champagne

Under the 1905 law, the government decrees were taken to delimit the wine regions.
Dangerous path, writes Clémentel, where we find successively all the steps of a modern civil war: the strike of elected officials, the refusal to pay taxes and eventually the uprising
The first decrees were related to Champagne. There were so profound disagreements between the producers of the Marne and Aube those of belonging to each other and to the Champagne considered a historical province; but the land and the varieties of the Marne, profoundly different from those of the Dawn. The natural conditions of production are not the same and yet the administrative boundaries, as was envisaged, the merged under one name.
The first decree of delimitation of Champagne took place on December 17 1908. He refused to Aube Champagne appellation, yet it did not meet the Marnais. The 17 and 18 January 1911, a riot occurred. Following these incidents, André Lefèvre, MP, who had communication with my 1906 report, took the view that I had exposed.
He said at the meeting of April 3, 1911: "The law is dangerous, because administratively assigning a fictitious value to all that is collected in this scope, we give a bonus to those tempted to plant in the wrong land, doubtful grapes, giving wines of poor quality and that, however, under the administrative boundaries, will most legally and regularly entitled to trusted names we wanted to give them. I say that the day you launched worldwide, with the guarantee of the Government and the official stamp, amounts of bad wines, Bordeaux bad, ill-Champagne, you will not have helped to raise the product name and increase the prestige of the brand.
A decree of June 7, 1911, taken to meet the winemakers of the Marne, lifted the second time. Traders houses were looted. It was still using troops to quell the riot.
Administrative boundaries also failed in Bordeaux.
This shows that the work of administrative demarcation was tainted with a double vice: on the one hand, this intervention in arbitration and administration, on the other hand, the trend of orders to consider only the geographical origin ignoring the real factors of the quality of wine: the land and the vine.
From that moment, these two designs would begin to collide in Parliament: the thesis demanding quality guarantees for the designation of origin and the thesis requiring that the only origin.
The conflict between these two doctrines had begun to Parliament with André Lefèvre intervention and continued until the promulgation of the Decree of 30 July 1935, that is to say during the whole phase of legal boundaries.

Judicial phase

The essential qualities are considered

June 30, 1911, Mr. Pams, Minister of Agriculture, filed on the desk in the room a bill establishing the method of boundaries through the courts.
Article 1 stipulates that the definition of goods bearing some original names, judges would have to consider, regardless of the origin itself, the nature, composition and substantial quality of this product .
The method of administrative boundaries was abandoned to make way for a new method, but the two opposing views continued to face.
They were thus exposed by Mr. Dariac, rapporteur, February 27, 1913: "With regard to the winemakers, the mere fact that a product, be harvested in an area should earn him the benefit of name for. merchants, wine can not be entitled to the protected designation unless he meets the complete product definition.
In this debate, the consumer can not however be the only person we did not hear. If Parliament wants to give the wine a protection that is needed, he is just as it takes into consideration the buyer's wishes.
Before being tabled in Parliament, the bill was submitted to the Trade Associations and Viticulture of the Gironde, and after long discussions, intervened on 18 September 1913, the agreement of Bordeaux which the Government adopted the most terms.

What were the principles of this law?

1 - The appellation of origin is a title, and it is through these court judgments that will be resolved conflicts that affect them.

2 - The law applied to all agricultural products derived from their origin notoriety: wine, water spirits, cheese, etc ...

3 - The law protected the goods covered by the appellation of origin, not only because it came from the place of origin, but because they were obtained with plant varieties and farming methods according to which had value.

The project which was presented to Parliament by the Minister of Agriculture at the time, agreed with all agricultural associations wore in one of his articles the word "essential qualities."

To qualify for the designation of origin, the products had to have two kinds of conditions:

1 - have been obtained in the place or region of origin.

2 - Present the essential qualities of the products that made the reputation of the appellation.

The history of this law shows the gaps in methods of parliamentary work, and how disastrous results they can achieve.
The law came under discussion November 13, 1913 in the House; she devoted five meetings that were more confused when the true purpose of the law was completely neglected.
Both doctrines confrontèrent, but that of the original complemented by essential qualities was poorly defended. Parliamentarians did not believe that the appellation of origin is not a common property, common to all wine growers in the region, each of which can use, none of which has the right to abuse.
This conception of the appellation of origin had not been so presented to Parliament. It was only later, in the Jenouvrier report we will talk, the collective character of the appellation of origin was highlighted with the consequences that derive.

Jenouvrier report

The text voted by the Chamber as to the Senate, which appointed a Commission whose findings were exhibited by Senator Jenouvrier. Its report was tabled in the Senate on July 22, 1914. It is a legal work more interesting. It defines the true nature of appellations of origin, collective right and not individual property.
We would like to mention a fundamental page of this report.
Speaking of quality products that deserve a label of origin, he said:
"The reputation that is well attached to products was the result and reward of prolonged efforts of successive generations."
The guarantees of quality that should be required for the right to the appellation of origin were not considered, and, whatever the value of this report, the adverse consequences was going to lead the 1919 law does produced no less. The war interrupted the development of this legislation. She was not taken to Parliament after the peace, when the Treaty of Versailles erected in principle the international protection of appellations of origin.
Finally, the law was passed May 6, 1919.

A campaign to reform the Law of May 6, 1919

A few months later, I was appointed deputy of the Gironde, in November 1919 I decided to change this harmful law. My first visit was for Mr. Roux, Director of Fraud Control at the Ministry of Agriculture, who had been the assistant minister Clémentel in the development of the Law of May 6, 1919 on fraud and who were owed the makes substantial qualities.
I explained what I had observed in the Gironde. He said that the same facts produced in Burgundy and in this region, a large number of French-American hybrid vines were being created. I explained to him my intention to amend the law on this point of 6 May 1919 and I made sure of its competition.
I resolved to campaign against this interpretation of Article 1 of the Law of 6 May 1919, but did not want to deliver the bill I was planning randomly parliamentary debate. I understood that he first had to convince the wine associations, create movement in public opinion and act on it by parliamentarians.
I take every opportunity to show the dangers of this law with serious winemakers could now ensure for themselves.In the project I meditated, the appellation of origin could not be achieved with the original one, but it should be also guaranteed by production practices relating to soil and vines, as I explained in 1906.
I thought it would have been foolhardy to use the expression "essential qualities" and seek to return to Parliament on the opinion expressed in this regard. He seemed more skillful me to build the law on absolutely new principles. It was to restore the word "use" in the 1919 Act and its full sense to require, for the appellation of origin, not only to commercial usage which had extended the name of the primitive town, but some production customs such as soil and grape varieties.
One could assume that after the sessions of the House in November 1913, the thesis of the original warranty for the quality was definitely beaten. She still found defenders and we will see renewed conflict in the courts because of the interpretation of the word "use" contained in the first article of this law.

Examination of Article 1 of the Law of May 6, 1919

New conflicts between the two theses

Some courts thought that to have the rights to a name, the products should present both the original conditions and the conditions of production comply with the procedures in force in the country. For others, the original condition was enough.
Let us examine the text of Article 1: "Anyone who will claim an appellation of origin is applied to its direct or indirect prejudice and against its right to a natural or manufactured product unlike the origin of that product, or to local, trustworthy and established practice, will be a lawsuit to prevent the use of this name. "
The least one can say of this article is that it is not easy to understand at first reading.
It is said that Stendhal, before going to the job, read some passages of the Civil Code to train. His style is certainly not gained luster, but its example could be imitated by the drafters. The authors of the Civil Code would have at least three sentences to express the ideas in one in this article.

1- A phrase to define the designation of origin, such as the Civil Code defines property (art. 54) or sale (art. 1582), for example.

2- A phrase to express what conditions had to complete the appellation.

3- A sentence to tell how would occur legal action relating to an appellation.

4- To show that the courts had a regulatory authority in this matter, we could add at this point in the text of Article 7 saying that the "final judgments or decisions decide with regard to all residents and owners same city or, if applicable, a part of the same town. "

This is writing the sentence No. 2, which was crucial and it is thanks to her that the law could have the clarity instead of the ambiguous language of s. That's where we would have seen the exact meaning that the legislature intended to give the word "practice".
I said earlier that there were two kinds of uses: the use of commercial and had eventually spread to adjoining premises the name of a designation of origin and production purposes, including those are related to soil and vines. It is in this second sentence that the legislature would have specified whether he meant that the appellation of origin should fulfill the conditions of these two kinds of uses.
It should say: To be valid, an appellation of origin must apply to a product obtained in the place of origin or in neighboring places, under local, trustworthy and established practice, are entitled to this designation of origin; in addition, this product will be obtained in accordance with local, fair and traditional practices of production.
Without such precision, decisions in opposite occurred to justice.

Interpretation of the law by the Court of Cassation

The Court of Cassation, which had to decide between conflicting decisions, interpreted Article 1 of the Act of 6 May 1919. It found that only were envisaged by the legislator uses relating to delimitation of the area of ​​origin: one should therefore disregard the production uses.

The law becomes a generator of fraud

The interpretation of the Supreme Court threw the creative movement of new vineyards in the land unsuitable for growing grapes. We can say that the legislature of 1919, by ignorance of practical conditions of viticulture, had deflected the law of his goal. This law against fraud had become generators of a new fraud.
That's where are conducted the Assemblies when legislating in abstraction away from reality conditions!
Thus wine exhibiting none of the characters from that for which the designation was instituted, could nevertheless enjoy this appellation.
In such a situation, what was the result?
Is that the name of guaranteed anything.
The danger I predicted in my 1906 report, that Mr. André Lefèvre announced at the podium in 1911, was realized.
The buyers were deceived.
Before the law of 1919, a wine that could not be authenticated by his own qualities; is honesty and trust, the professional value of the merchant, intermediary between the producer and the consumer, which was the surety with the latter, the origin of the wine.
Now it was the title of movement authenticated wine, whatever was the nature.
This is to enjoy this title movement giving a premium wine that accompanies some producers planted varieties of common high-output, in the scope specified regions. But this title was then issued for all wines of a region, whatever was of value. This legislation was also detrimental to producers.
By giving mediocre products entitled to the appellation, the 1919 legislation allowed the exercise of unfair competition against the real owners of the brand.
The community, the nation itself suffering injury.
Finally, the protection of designations could not be ensured vis-à-vis abroad.
The law becomes a generator of fraud.

Need for new law

The vote on my bill became more urgent and necessary than ever.
I had taken advantage of all the national Congress in which meet winemakers, including the presidents of unions wine from various regions of France, to show the dangers of the Act of 6 May 1919, as interpreted by the Court of Cassation. Five National Congress between 1920 and 1925 successively adopted my proposal.
I was no longer the voice crying in the desert as in 1906; I did not send forth a forecast on possible dangers but I drew attention to the real dangers which could determine the existence. It was thus gradually favorable public opinion for reform of the Law of May 6, 1919.
Mr Cheron, Minister of Agriculture, had appointed a commission called "grands crus" to study the necessities remedies the plight of viticulture fine wines.
Representatives of the major regions of the wines of France were members of this Commission and I, as president, I drafted its work towards reform of the law of 1919 and I made him adopt the text of the law that I had to present to the Parliament. As president of the peasant defense Group of the House, which already included half of its members, I explained to him this project and I did pass by that group.
I placed it in Parliament on 23 June 1925, signed by 318 deputies

It read as follows:
I intercalai between the first and second paragraph of Article I of the Law of May 6, 1919 the new provision indicated in the text below in italics:
"In addition, the origin of a city or a region delimited in accordance with the preceding paragraph shall be applied only to products obtained in the region or place of origin in accordance with local, fair uses and constant. "
"For wine, the production area and the vine mainly condition their designation of origin; in any case the wines from direct producer hybrids are not entitled to a designation of origin."
Thus the courts could fix other conditions the soil and varieties for establishing the right to the appellation of origin.
In 1917, the law was finally passed in an open vote, by 535 votes against 0 as follows:
"Art.3 - Section 10 of the Act is supplemented by the following provisions:
Regardless of the cause-related requirements contained in section 1 of this Act, no wine is entitled to the appellation of regional or local origin of it comes from grapes and an area of Production consecrated by local, loyal and constant.
The wines from hybrid direct producers are in no case entitled to a designation of origin. "

Benefits of the 1927 Act

She assured the final triumph of the thesis of the original warranty through quality. The theory of the origin only, source of so many troubles, was now abandoned forever.

Insufficiency of the law

If this law has not produced the full effect expected of it, it is for two reasons:

1 - It was optional, and was applied only in some regions. She had been approved and claimed by presidents of national unions in the Congress, but these unions represented an elite, a minority of winemakers, and when he had to apply the new disciplines to the majority, they no longer met the necessary approvals. Many regions appellations unregulated by the courts in accordance with the new law was under the Act of 6 May 1919 also still be to use varieties with high yield, planted on more land suitable for quantity and quality.

2 - The original text that I had submitted to Parliament had been truncated: it required as a condition of the appellation, not only the varieties and traditional courses, but some production purposes; but above the minimum level that we thought. It is very unfortunate that Parliament have rejected this condition, because we still live in regions appellation wines 7 ° obtained at a rate of 120 to 200 hectoliters per hectare, that is to say with quadruple yields what should be the name of a wine.

This underlines the names had difference between them as to the guarantees they offered. You could put them in this regard into four categories:

1 - For some, it was a real discipline of production imposed by a judgment in which not only the production area, the grape varieties, but the minimum degree and certain cultural conditions were determined as conditions for the appellation.
These names were a rare exception. They showed others the way to follow.

2 - For two famous appellations of the Gironde, the Act of 1927 was misunderstood and misapplied by the courts.

3 - In other appellations, the Act of 22 July 1927 had been applied strictly. The only two requirements: the production area and the vine had been established by a judgment.

4 - For other names at last, and it was a large majority, the 1917 Act was not in force. Loyal names were confused with others.

The Law of 1 January 1930 along well that a distinction was made between the simple indication of the place of production of a current wine and the appellation of origin of a fine wine, when it says in Article 2: "In no case should not be any confusion between the name of the place of production and the appellation of origin. " But she gave no way to avoid this confusion. She asked, in a way, the impossible. To benefit from the advantages granted to wines with a very large number of current wine producers declared their wine under the appellation of origin.

We can not explain such gullibility on the part of the legislator; as we had the opportunity to say already, it seems that the human side completely escaped them. This resulted in a multiplication of the number of designations which contributed to mislead the consumer.

Other causes of the proliferation of designations of origin

The law of 6 May 1919 stipulates that the origin of matter in appeal judgments are suspensive when disputes are brought before the Court of Cassation. As the producers that unduly benefited from an appellation had lost their case before the Court of Appeal, did not hesitate to bring before the Court of Cassation and thus use of the disputed names pending the judgment of the Court. They thus earned a time it was their precious and benefits he drew a designation applied improperly made up for court fees. Also appeals to the Court of Cassation they were almost the rule.
Finally, Article 3 of 1 January 1930 which prohibits the naming of wine the words "raw", "castles", etc., when not designate an area but a fictitious believed the ban did not apply to wines with declared an appellation of origin. So traders who managed to throw imaginary declared closed these fictitious wines with designation of origin, communal or regional, they had never thought of claiming before.
It was as if the law was looking for opportunities that could enable the proliferation of designations of origin.
Finally, the producers engaged in court mock trials in order to delimit their judgment by a wine region on the basis of geographical considerations and the courts delineated and new regions irrespective of whether the designation as delineated covering wines with certain quality, or even if it had a certain notoriety under local and constant usage.
In order to address overproduction, a law called "Wine Statute", dated July 4, 1931, which we will discuss later, included a number of provisions affecting owners producing more than 400 hectoliters: royalties reaching high yields and larger crops; limiting plantations, blocking a portion of the crop in some years, compulsory distillation of a certain percentage of the harvest. But the label of origin wines were exempted from these measures, whatever was the value of the origin. Hence the creation of a large number of improvised appellations of origin.
Finally, add that the Parliament itself, contrary to the principles he had imposed and doctrine formulated in the Act of 6 March 1919, began to play, under pressure from representatives of some areas, the delimitation some of origin without securing any guarantee of quality on soil or vines, and zones, and having a legal formula, included the exemption of constraints on current winemakers wines by the wine status.
That is to say that the disorder had reached its peak.
Mr. Lafforgue, director of agricultural services of the Gironde, wrote about it in an objective and documented study: "The proportion of wine with appellation reported increased in 15 years of a worryingly This, in. we believe one of the essential causes of the crisis that weighs so heavily on the wines of real quality ".
In 1923, the total reported wines with a designation of origin did not exceed 5 million hectoliters. She rose to 9,995,682 hl in 1931 and 15,720,756 in 1934 Hl.
From 1930 to 1939, the average reported with wine
designation of origin was
10 700 00 Hl, or 19% of the metropolitan production. The producers of ordinary wines of the south and Algeria, hard hit by the blockade, rightly protested against the exemptions granted to producers of common wines with designations of origin misleading.
A general movement arose against these abuses; it was absolutely necessary that we ended it.

The wine status: a Lifestyle changes

In 1927, a crisis, ever increasing, due to overproduction, raged in the trade of ordinary wines.
In 1931, Parliament had to decide on a system of organization of wine production that aimed to regulate the sale and prevent the crisis. This was to maintain a balance between supply and demand, reducing the first and increasing the second. It is this organization test was called the wine status.
It was important to prevent the dangers that overproduction has caused worldwide, both in America and Europe.
The 1931 statute forbade wine plantations for ten years for more than 10 hectares property. His most significant action was the blocking, that is to say the prohibition on wine growers harvesting more than 400 hectoliters of ship beyond a specified proportion of the harvest. Compulsory distillation imposed on them when the total available, according to the declarations of harvest, exceeded a fixed maximum.
This was action quite new, which contrasted with the liberalism of the time; it was a business, not a command economy by the state, but rather saving organized by the profession itself, as the public authorities were merely absorbing the measures demanded by producers.
It was the first test of organization of production in France.
This attempt reveals a true evolution in morals; it shows that the profession is ready to undergo some constraints in order to obviate threatening dangers.
Only at that time, fine wine producers thus enjoyed the most absolute freedom.
We have shown that this freedom was going to anarchy.
In truth, the crisis of fine wines, as we have seen, was completely different from that of ordinary wines since there was no overproduction of fine wines; on the contrary, since the areas planted with vines were reduced in the country of production fame.
But the economic discipline that was required producers of ongoing wine was an example for producers of fine wines.
If we consider the irritation among ordinary wine producers by the growing number of winemakers escaping through misleading names, blocking and distillation; if one considers, on the other hand, the statement noted 16 million hectoliters of wine appellation, if we finally considering what was then called, rightly, "the scandal origin ", it logically leads to the conclusion that the time had come to accept to wine producers end the effort of discipline required by law that I intend to propose to the Senate.

Technical phase

 Review of solutions

Before the discredit which had fallen appellations of origin, what to do?
Should we close our eyes?
Then they let go national wealth.
There is no quality product without a label that distinguishes and differentiates the ordinary product. But there is no viable name without protection.
Waive protection of appellations of origin wine was give up any quality policy to viticulture.
The wines today are as good as ever, and perhaps their production is the only mode of human activity in which, at that time, there was no exaggeration in production because each year had been torn before the 1914 war thousands of hectares in the most famous vineyards.
Should we allow the producers of fine wines, already suffering so severely by the export crisis, screw production undermined by unfair competition from producers of ordinary wines, unoriginal, not superiority, which had sought in 'designation of origin as a means to escape the heavy loads of wine status imposed on ordinary wines.
Were they denied protection both the consumer and producer loyal?
Would they allow a consumer buying above the ordinary wine prices a designation of origin to wine, has two in three chance of being cheated?
France is the country in the world that has made the most efforts for the protection of industrial, literary, artistic, wine. Lawyers she sent in the International Congresses have authority. It imposed in the peace treaties defending its titles in 24 nations.
France, which she was the most numerous and the most prestigious designations of origin to be outdone in the protection of these designations by Italy, Portugal, Spain, Luxembourg?
It was here a national interest first and foremost.
What to do ? Unable to leave things as they are. It was necessary to attempt a recovery effort or admit the bankruptcy of France in the field where, for centuries, it occupies the most prominent place and at a time when the salvation of its production is in the pursuit of quality.
Examine possible solutions.
I think it might be sufficient to bring the volume of appellations of origin that it had to be really, that is to say 16 million hectoliters to 5 or 6 million.
It was obviously the general desire; the big concern then was to do away with the false appellations of origin. It was thought that the true designations of origin that would remain would retain their old qualities and deserve their reputation.
But how can this selection? How did admit in an appellation of origin that the only quality wines produced in accordance with ancient local custom that had created their reputation?
We could achieve that by controlling each of the production elements: soil, grape varieties, cultivation methods.

Deposit and promulgation of the law on controlled appellations

Such was the purpose of the bill that I put before the Senate, March 12, 1935.
I said in the explanatory memorandum: "The problem facing us was twofold:

1 - Allow consumers to easily distinguish designations covering quality wines from those apply only to ordinary wines;

2 - For the names that until recently, applied only choice of products, establish a production discipline, control and quality assurance. For this purpose, requiring real names for certain production conditions, not only on grapes and the production area, but a limitation of the average production per hectare and a minimum degree conditions according to appellations. But who can fix these conditions? Courts ? It is conceivable that we have appealed to them to determine the boundaries of designations, because there could be a dispute between opposing parties claiming the use of a label.
But it is now to ensure the quality of wines covered with such designations of origin, to ensure consumers in a word, to establish production discipline.
Obviously this can not be the work of the courts, that discipline can be highly professional work can only be imposed by the interested parties themselves.
It is natural that the administration is working there; but it does not seem possible that accomplish this task alone.
As soon as the 1919 Act gave a status designations of origin, were created in all regions of fine wines of Trade Unions for the defense of designations of origin and of the Unions or Federations of trade unions.
This is their group can with more authority and competence to determine the conditions of production of each denomination, with the help of local associations, local experts, specialized staff.
These conditions may vary by region, but should be inspired by a single doctrine: the elimination of common varieties and unsuitable land, establishing a minimum level and a maximum yield, varying designations.The State will be represented in the Committee, and it will be a significant number of staff.
It is now to differentiate designations of origin applying to wines whose quality is controlled, those that cover ordinary wines.
We can prevent wine growers to give their wines, whatever they are, an original name. But you can inform the consumer that certain appellations correspond to select wines. These names will be called "controlled".
For that reason alone, a selection will be instituted in the names. "

In the explanatory memorandum, I also foresaw the creation of the National Committee.
I explained the bill establishing the controlled labels on the bases that I have indicated to the Wine Group of the Senate adopted it.
It was signed by all representatives of the fine wine regions and filed March 22, 1935.
So there were two in each wine region appellations of the same name: the controlled and the other free, called single appellation.
Although the single name system was not imposed on wine producers, however, those who decided to adopt it proved year after year more and more.It is April 3, 1942 that the appellation contrôlée became mandatory.