Name of controlled origin

The Appellation of controlled origin (AOC) is a French sign of protected Geographical ascription, identifying the origin of traditional food products French (see the article Identification marks of the origin and quality). They belong to the Labels of origin protected European (AOP).

Their significance

AOC

AOC (Names of controlled origin) identify a product, the authenticity and the typicity of its geographic origin. They are guarantors of its qualities and its characteristics, of sound Terroir of origin, the know-how of the producer (Vin S, Cidre S, Fruit S and Légume S, dairy products, etc), of the anteriority and the notoriety of the name. The quantity and the control of labelling of the products under AOC answer a schedule of conditions validated, in France, by INAO (National institute of the Origin and Quality)

To recognize the products

The objective of these signs of quality is to make them easily recognizable. The cheeses, for example, either are marked in heel (food ink red), or recognizable with their label or a plate of Caséine (food material). The label indicates a number as well as the certification body. The color of the plate of casein indicates classification: green for the farm products and red for the dairy products.

Examples of practice

Reform French wine die

In July 2004, the Minister for Agriculture Herve Gaymard launched the reform of French wine die by receiving the representatives of the professional organizations who sit at the council of the Onivins (National interdisciplinary office of the wines). It is a question of leaving greatest crisis the than the sector knew of its history, because no area escapes from the dramatic fall from the sales and the bankruptcies of number.

Three causes are responsible for the current location: the competition of the foreign wines, world economic context, but especially the extreme complexity of the French production and its inadequacy at the overseas markets. The worst can côtoyer the best and the consumers are décontenancés in front of the labels of the French wines and their classification between the table wines, the three denominations of local wines (secondary road, of zone and regional), the AOVDQS, AOC and the vintages.

Rene Renou , president of the committee of the wines and spirits of the INAO, charged with the AOC and author with a radical reform project, announces: “If we do not do the housework ourselves, the market will do it in our place (...) the consumer is not found there, it is necessary to regain its confidence and to always produce better wines”. Exports fell of 3% in 2003 and in the first quarter 2004, they record a fall of 7% in value and 4,6% in volume, compared to the first quarter 2003.

The new organization proposed is articulated around two great groups of products:

Those whose offer is built on the soil and the typicity, as the AOC (“marketing of the offer”).
Those able to answer waitings of each category of consumers and capable to adapt to the requirements of the international markets (“marketing of the request”), those where the competition is hardest, and where one will propose identifiable wines by their type of vine or their mark, and which will be able to have access to new technologies, like that of the use of the etc, shavings

Greek feta

The Feta is today protected by a Label of origin protected what for a long time had not been the case. In the European Union, 90% of the feta were produced out of Greece, particularly in France, Germany and in Denmark, these countries considering that the term “feta” was a generic Appellation.

In October 2005, the European Court of justice grateful that only the feta produced in Greece is entitled to this denomination, the decision of the European commission confirms by estimating that this cheese is “ the fruit of the ancestral tradition of the extensive pasture and transhumance ” and that “ the specific flora ” of “ certain areas of Greece ” confers “ to him a savor and a particular flavor ”.

The dairy industrialists of the country using the term “feta” have until October 2007 to completely eliminate the word “feta” from their production. Among them, the dairy group French producing Lactalis of “feta” under the mark “Salakis”.

European harmonization

The Commission of the European Union having wished to harmonize the “official signs of quality”, one cannot create regional label any more. They are currently six. Thus IGP (protected Geographical ascription) correspond on a European scale with the regional labels. In parallel, the AOC have as a European equivalent AOP (protected Label of origin). Since 2002, a label or a AOC cannot exist without being automatically respectively registered in IGP or AOP.

In Italy, the AOC corresponds to " DOC" for Denominazione di Origine Controllata; in Germany one with the " QbA" for Qualitätswein and in Spain " D.O." for Denominación of origen.

Certifications to Quebec

Current the law on reserved names (January 2004) date of 1996 and resulted in making recognize only one name: that bearing on the biological products. An work group proposes to create new certifications, but also to amend in-depth the current law, and to create an organization of control charged to frame their use.

The objective of the recasting? To legislate from now on on four new names:

products of the soil, whose specificity is closely related to the characteristics of a given territory,
farm products, worked out in a farm,
artisanal products, resulting from a mode of production not industrialized,
regional products, coming from a place, a territory or a particular area of Quebec, but whose character is not single with the area.

OMC Geographical ascriptions

See the Geographical ascriptions of OMC.

See too

Denominazione di Origine Protetta
List of French wines AOC
List of the dairy AOC
List of the agroalimentary AOC
Identification marks of the origin and quality

External bonds

(France): Official site of the National institute of the labels of origin (INAO)

Simple: AOC

Random links: