Wine Rules

Most countries have rules and regulations under which their wines have to be produced, but those rules are not made because of common sense, or to protect the consumer. Most naive wine consumers think it was to protect them, but how wrong they are! Those rules are there to protect the vested interests of the industry. Let’s look at some of them.

In Australia, the weather is warm and we don’t normally have trouble getting our grapes to ripen; in fact we sometimes have the opposite problem with grapes being too ripe and not having enough acid, so In Australia it is perfectly acceptable, indeed legal, to add tartaric acid to the wine when it’s being made. If added in the right amount, the consumer should not be able to notice the addition and it will help balance the wine. In France, this practice is not just frowned upon; it’s illegal.

In France, they normally don’t have the problem of having their grapes so ripe they need the addition of tartaric acid, but they sometimes have the reverse problem; they can’t get their grapes ripe enough and the alcohol level is too low. In France, it perfectly legal to add sugar (its called chaptalisation) to the juice before or during fermentation; the sugar can be in a number of different forms including cane sugar and various forms of grape must. Surprise, surprise, the use of chaptalisation in Australia is banned, but then we don’t need it.

In Australia, by law certain facts on the label must be true. If a wine is called Shiraz, it must have 85% Shiraz in it. If it’s from Coonawarra, the same thing applies; you can’t call a wine a Coonawarra Cabernet if it contains less than 85% cabernet in it or if half the fruit comes from Clare. (That’s why you see “Product of South East Australia” on so many bottles; the fruit can come from anywhere in SA, Vic or NSW.) In general, in Australia we call our wine by the grape in the bottle.

In France, there is a completely different set of rules. None of this 85% rule, but they do have their own rules. For example, if a red wine has a Bordeaux label, the rules say it must only contain grapes of specific varieties; Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Malbec and Petite Verdot. Theses five varieties can be blended in any percentage the winery chooses, but they can not have even 1% Shiraz in the bottle if there is a Bordeaux label on the bottle.

These laws, and there are similar ones for the other regions, are there to protect the integrity and reputation of each region. The laws are tightly controlled and are there to ensure the industry is protected from radical elements that want to ‘mess with tradition.’

Tradition can be a good thing, but when it gets in the way of good business, it can be a problem as you will now see. For years, the French were the dominant supplier of wine to the UK (and other major markets) but over time, the Australians have knocked them off their perch and we now are the number one supplier of wine in the UK market. The “sunshine in a bottle” and modern winemaking techniques used in Australia have proved to be popular with consumers, and our gain has been the French wine industry’s loss at the volume end of the market. The flavours imparted from oak can also be very attractive and is another reason that much of the Australian wine has been seen as attractive.

Oak barrels are very expensive, especially the French variety but the Australian industry has used their modern winemaking skill which has enabled them to produce low-cost, low-end wine with the added attraction of oak characters. They simply add oak chips or planks to wine stored in huge stainless steel tanks and the oak flavours slowly infuse into the wine; it’s much cheaper than paying thousands for a barrel.

The use of chips or wood shavings is very common in the new world but until now, it has not been allowed in France. That regulation is about to change which will give the French the ability to use this method, a practice that was frowned upon in the past. Economic necessity and a loss of market share have forced a change in the regulations.  

A good example of vested interests over-riding antiquated regulations to help wineries sell their products, and make no mistake, that’s what wine industry laws and regulations are all about.  No story could show how true this is more than the next example.

Spain, after Portugal, is the world’s second-largest producer of tree-bark corks for wine. In an astonishingly move, they have banned the use of alternative closures if wines want to be able to obtain DO status. The DO status is awarded to quality wine in Spain and is similar to the French Appellation d'Origine Controlee (AOC) system. No cork, no DO status!

APCOR the Portuguese cork producers’ consortium, called the new Spanish law “yet another endorsement for the cork closure.” “Spanish lawmakers and wine producers are responding to what wine drinkers the world over have been telling us for a long time,” said APCOR’s Elisa Pedro.

No sane, rational person could possibly think that this new law is an endorsement of the quality of cork as a closure; and anyone who actually believes it needs a full frontal lobotomy to improve their IQ! It is simply vested business interests putting pressure on the government to protect their own turf.

It has no more to do with producing quality wine than the permission granted to the French to use oak chips; it’s all about protecting market share and looking after their own industry.