AOC, VDP, vines, wines, vine growing and vinum

The vine was domesticated to satisfy the tastes and the needs of the man. The immediate product is the grape, fruit extremely perishable ; the products of guard, which are preserved several years, are prepared by drying (dry grapes) or, after pressing, by fermentation (wine) or the concentration (marmelades) ; the product refuge is the alcohol, which preserves tens of years and which is obtained starting from the wine or from the dry grapes.

The world vineyard covers 8,2 million hectares producing almost 300 million hectolitres of wine, 70 million quintals of grapes of table, 9 million quintals of dry grapes and 2,5 million solid quintals of concentrates. The wine is often the principal product of the culture, but it yields the step to the dry grapes and the concentrates in the countries of Islamic religion. According to techniques' of concerned transformations, one can, starting from the grape, to obtain an extremely varied range of products, which is added to the diversity of type of vines and the vintages.

The wines of table are divided into red wines, rosé wines and white wines ; the latter can be more or less liqueur-like according to the sugar rate which they contain. The sparkling wines are produced by the second fermentation either in bottles (Champagne, sparkling method champagne), or out of tanks (sparkling wines produced out of closed tanks). The natural sweet wines (Porto) and the liqueur wines are prepared by addition of alcohol to the grape juice, front, during or after alcoholic fermentation. The mistelles ones and vermouths, which include/understand the addition of alcohol and possibly of aromatic principles, are intended exclusively for the preparation of aperitifs. Lastly, the special wines (Jerez, Madeira) are obtained starting from very particular techniques of wine making.

The grape and the wine are biological environments of a great complexity; consequently, during the wine making, of the conservation and ageing, they can be the seat of a great number of chemical or biological conversions. The intervention of the oenologist consists in placing the wine under conditions such as the useful transformations are carried out and that those which are harmful are avoided.

The cultivated or wild vines belong to the originating Vitis kind, in the boreal hemisphere, of a primitive surface which was split by the separation of the continents. The American trunk includes/understands some grape-bearing species of which only one is cultivated on a few tens of thousands of hectares, in the east of the United States and in Canada : Vitis labrusca or fox grape ; its grapes, which have a strong raspberry taste, known as « are foxés » ; they are generally not appreciated in Europe. The other American species, particularly resistant to will phylloxera, are used as carry-Clerc's Offices : V riparia , V rupestris , V berlandieri . From Europe to Tianshan [ Tien-chan ], the trunk eurasiatic is being represent only by just one species, Vitis vinifera , whereas in Far East it include in particular V amurensis , of which the grape be gather on the plant wild of bank of Amour and of Oussouri, V coignetiae , in Japan and with Sakhaline, and some other species, some thorny ; all are sensitive to will phylloxera. Species resist the cold of the winter (V riparia , V labrusca , V amurensis ) ; others are adapted to the climates without winter (V caribaea ).

It is only in XIXe century that the insulation of the species was stopped in consequence of the phylloxerna invasion which destroyed the French vineyard in a quarter century and which did not find a remedy only with the grafting of V vinifera on the resistant American species. In parallel, the resistance of the American vines to the diseases of the foliage allowed creation, by crossing with V will vinifera, of direct producing hybrids; those replaced, in particular in the areas exposed to the cold of the winter and the mildew, the traditional vineyard. The study of the species, the selection and creation by crossing varieties and direct producers, the study of the characters and the aptitudes of the varieties were the considerable work object; essence was acquired before 1900.

Vitis will vinifera, cultivated for its succulent fruits, includes/understands more than six thousand varieties or type of vines, whose several hundreds are the subject of an exploitation. They originate in the remainders of the tertiary flora established in natural settlements in the forests, on the mountains or banks of the rivers. The domestication of the vine was done by the taking away of the cuttings on these wild vines and by the selection of the types which were maintained until the current hour (pinot, riesling, kadarka, rkatsiteli, rosaki). Other type of vines are clones obtained starting from only one foot resulting from sowing (alicante, bouschet, italia, müller-thurgau). According to aptitudes' of type of vines, one distinguishes the grapes from table (fleshy bays which not squirting with the chewing and being able to be taken with the fingers on bunches: alphonse-lavallée) and wine grapes (juicy bays giving good quality musts : grenache) ; the dry grapes are generally apyrens. The economic profile of the wine grapes is determined by the alcoholic strength and the acidity of the wine (wines of table, guard able to age, generous or of dessert, to distil, etc.) and by the tasting which separates, in each category, fine wines (chardonnay) of the common beverage wines (ugni blanc) or of the common and even coarse wines (aramon, 18.315 S.V.). The choice of type of vines is regulated in France and as in the European Economic Community, as it is for the production of the blended wines or the wines of vintage, recipients of a label of origin.

The fast creation of a great number of seedlings (between 130 and 150 millions in France, annually), formed in groups homogeneous and of which the specimens, identical for each one, react uniformly, resorts to the cutting and the grafting. The grafted vines are established by the grafting on the spot marbled seedlings, if the climate is favourable with the welding in the open air, or by the plantation of grafted and welded seedlings obtained in seedbed or by methods of forcing.

Produced by feet mothers, the wood which receives graf is output in cuttings which are planted in seedbed, after or without grafting. Four thousand nursery gardeners obtain 50 millions marbled seedlings and 70 millions grafted welded for a value of 120 millions French francs. The practice of the forcing of the grafted seedlings, the use of the cold for the conservation of the seedlings and, to a lesser extent, the mechanization of the operations are the ways borrowed by technical progress. The production is the medical and varietal control object, exerted in France by the Institute of the wines of current consumption (I.V.C.C. - Institut des vins de consommation courant).

The climat is characterized, mainly, by the heat and the light received for the period of active life of the vine. Generally, the vineyard tends to leave the septentrional situations, whose products are sweetened little and acid, with the profit of the southernmost areas, adapted to the production of generous, alcoholic, sweetened wines and little acids, where the frosts are less frequent and less intense. However, of the plastic covers advance, in the cold areas, the harvest of the early grapes of table.

When the ground is deep, rich and fresh as in the plains and the valleys low, the outputs are high, but the quality of the wine is low; however, the vine tends to give up the hills and the slopes which produce the best wines; administrative measurements have as an aim to reverse these transfers. The characteristics of the wine depend primarily on the mineral components related to the geological origin of the ground and the definition of the surfaces of production of the typical vineyards takes account of this data. To the traditional problems, like the chlorosis which appears on the grounds limestones, or salting it observed in the grounds conquered on the lagoons and in the plains of estuary of the Mediterranean circumference, are added with an increasing frequency, following the abandonment of warpings and the amendments, the symptoms of the mineral deficiencies (boron, for example) and, in consequence of the repeated sulphur contributions, an excessive acidification of the naturally acid grounds (Roussillon) ; these disorders are corrected by amendments.

The purpose of the annual practices are obtaining of a given product. The mode of control (size, training, provision of the plantations) is subjected to two tendencies contradictoires ; as the naturally alcoholic wines can be obtained only on weak stocks, dense plantations, producing little and led close to the ground, the search for products of a high quality is, at least partly, in opposition with the profitability of the exploitations which rests on the reduction in the costs and the increase in the outputs. Thus adoption of the instruments harnessed in XIXe century, then the motorization in XXe century required a significant reduction in the density of plantation, which had as a consequence an increase in the strength of the stocks and a certain deterioration of quality. The increase in the output by the long size, the popularization of the Guyot system in XIXe century and by the considerable loads adopted in the cultures " hautes and larges " made necessary the artificial correction of musts. Such practices however did not spread in France (partly because of the regulation), even at the time of the introduction of the machines to be gathered the grapes which appeared, finally, adapted to the current mode of control. If certain vineyard have be transform completely, as that of Champagne in which the density of plantation be return most of the time of 5 000 plants per hectare with less than 1 000, some other have undergo only some modification minor, like the immense vineyard Mediterranean, or be remain faithful with type traditional, like the Medoc.

Mechanization made it possible to multiply the ploughings, to better fight the putting under grass and to develop the favorable effects in the ways aratoires ; but the major ploughings were harmful and the cost of the expensive equipment. Developed since 1960 approximately, the chemical weed control is rather well known so that whole exploitations gave up the ploughings for a " non-culture " which had annoying consequence neither for the vine nor for the ground, and which contributes to the survival of the producing steep vineyards of good wines; other operators limit themselves to a partial weeding, on the line.

Always used with moderation in the old vineyard because of their unfavourable effects to quality, the manures spread with the artificial fertilisers, in particular the nitrogenized manures which increase the strength of the vines; they have as consequences an intensification of the rot and a deterioration of the quality of the wines. A more rational attitude is desirable.

Among the accidents, the frosts of spring are avoided by processes of reheating of the atmosphere, effective but expensive and which are applied only out of Champagne. The strong frosts of winter require the protection of the stocks in central Europe and Russia. As for hail, the uncertainty of the methods of fight justifies the insurance. To these natural misdeeds is added industrial pollution who is due to the fume of factories (SO2 and HF) and to dust of the cement factories.

In the diseases with virus, most significant "court-noué"; transmissible by the ground thanks to a nematode, it causes deformations, the run-out and the nanism; the fight rests, on the one hand, on the cleansing of the ground by a long rest or disinfection by a fumigant and, on the other hand, on the led medical selection, in particular, in the sandy grounds which do not communicate the disease. Other symptoms were allotted to various virus diseases (rolling up, marbling, panachure, etc), but the conditions of their propagation are not known and one does not apply particular methods to them of fight.

Syndromes called disease of Pierce in California and golden flavescence in Armagnac were allotted to mycoplasmes transmitted by the cicadelles ones, but it is difficult to make the share of the damage which concerns the mycoplasmose and that which is only the direct effect of the insects which nourish themselves. The insecticides are effective means of fight.

The parasitic mushrooms of the sheets are responsible for considerable damage. The principal ones came from the United-States : oïdium (1845), mildew (1878), black-rot (1885). They are fought by chemical processing applied to the foliage : sulphur against the oïdium since 1847 ; cupric pulps against the mildew since 1885, then against all the other parasitic mushrooms whose germs evolve/move in the water of the rains (black-rot, "rougeot parasitaire") ; the use of these mixtures was abandoned about 1950 with the profit of fungicides of synthesis (thiocarbamates, imides phtalic in particular) which are employed only or in organo-cupric mixtures. The mackled anthracnose, or coal, and the excoriose, diseases of the branches, are justiciable to processing of winter to soda arsenite. The processors achieved progress, from the primitive syringe the motorized apparatuses projecting a liquid jet, then a fog with little liquid, and with the towed oscillating gun units and the planes ; the complete mechanization of the operations allows processing close to 48 hours at most, which is the condition of the success of the fight in the exposed situations.

Lastly, the rot of the bunches or gray rot, caused by a nonpledged banal mushroom with the vine (Botrytis), became, in consequence of the biochemical changes brought by the processing pesticides and the nitrogenized manures, a major cause of reduction in harvests. The chemical fight, not very effective, resorts to the imides, the dichlofluanide, the benomyl ; but, invited to be applied to the bunches during maturation and little before the gathering, the products leave residues of which some are not without effect on fermentations, the quality of the wine and human health.

Among the animal parasites, most significant is will phylloxera it. Originating in the center and the east of the United States, this insect invaded Europe by the west more than one century ago; since, progressing towards the east, the invasion arrived to Georgia and Asia until the meridian line of Ankara. In the territories invaded, the grafting on the resistant American vines is best the solution ; discovered in France, it made it possible to back up the world wine inheritance.

The French production is divided into several types. The legislation of the European Community distinguishes the "quality wines produced in an delimited area" (V.Q.P.R.D. - vins de qualité produits dans une région délimitée) and "vins of table" (vin de table). Among the latter, the "vins de pays" correspond to a determinate origin; in France the local wines are controlled by the Office of the wines (Office des vins.).

The French legislation distinguishes, among the V.Q.P.R.D., the "vins délimités de qualité supérieure" (V.D.Q.S.) and "vins d'appellation d'origine contrôlée" (A.O.C.). The first are subjected to a regulation and a trade-union control. The right to the controlled label of origin is the subject of a decree taken on proposal of the national institute of the labels of origin. This decree specifies, for each name, the geographical surface, the type of vines, the limiting output with the hectare, the minimal degree, the processes of culture of the vine and wine making.

The chemical composition of the wine is of a great complexity, which is not surprising if one considers that the wine results from alive cells, those of grape bay. The juice extracted from this one is processed by yeasts and bacteria lactic, often after mushroom intervention which parasitizes it. The study of the chemical components of the wine made great progress thanks to the development of the modern methods of chromatographic analysis; one knows some three hundred chemical bodies today taking part in the composition of the wine ; they come from the grape or are produced during alcoholic fermentation and of the bacterial transformations.

One distinguishes primarily the wine making in red and in white. In the first case, only the juice of the grape, generally of the white grape, is put in fermentation, which supposes a preliminary separation, by pressing, of the films, the pips and the rafles ; the pigments being localised in the film, one can possibly obtain white wines starting from black grapes " vinifiés in blanc " (champagne resulting from pinot black).

In the case of the red wines, on the other hand, the extraction of the red pigments and tanins, starting from the skin, pips, possibly branch of the black grapes, is done during the maceration which accompanies fermentation; this maceration contributes in a dominating way to fix the organoleptic characteristics of these wines. In this case, pressing is carried out after fermentation.

The yeasts (saccharomyces), microbiological agents of fermentation, which transform the sugar of the grape (glucose and fructose) into ethanol, are always present on the grapes themselves; they spend the winter in the grounds of vineyard and the insects ensure their dissemination on bays during the summer.

Beside alcoholic fermentation, another microbiological transformation is essential to the production of certain wines of quality, in particular of the red wines; it is about lactic fermentation of the malic acid by certain bacteria, or malolactic fermentation. This transformation lowers acidity and softens the wines. It must occur immediately after alcoholic fermentation, in order to be able to quickly carry out the biological stabilization of the wine.

At the end of alcoholic fermentation, the wine obtained is extremely trouble ; it contains in suspension of very many yeasts which give him a milky aspect; it contains also various more or less bulky solid particles coming from the pulp of the grape and the albuminoid matters formed by the flocculation of the proteins ; finally, it is rich in carbon dioxide. During the period of maturation, the wine goes more clear; this operation is carried out spontaneously by evaporation of carbon dioxide and sedimentation of the solid particles in suspension, followed of their elimination by decantation; this result can be accelerated using various processes such as filtration and joining, this last consisting in adding in the wine a proteinic substance, or sticks, which, by flocculation and sedimentation, involves the particles of the disorder, thus accelerating the clarification ; this operation also carries out a stabilization, while eliminating from the colloidal particles unstable, likely to cause later precipitations.

At the end of the period of maturation, the wine is suited to consumption, at least in the case of the current wines which are not likely any more of improvement. The fine wines, on the other hand, see their organoleptic qualities improving during one more or less long period of ageing, but comprising at least three or four years; a conservation out of wood barrels of small capacity (part of 225 litres) allows a dissolution of certain aromatic principles of wood and a penetration of air, therefore a certain oxidation; this first phase is followed of an ageing in bottles, safe from the air, under reducing conditions. One approaches here one of the aspects which remain most mysterious of oenology; indeed, these transformations affect primarily the substances responsible for the color, the flavour and the taste. The knowledge of the odoriferous substances and the pigments remains very limited. However, even if the mechanisms intimate transformations which occur during ageing are not completely elucidated, reasoned empiricism fixed the conditions most favorable to this ageing.

When fermentations alcoholic and malolactic are finished, the development of the micro-organisms must be avoided. Thanks to its alcohol and to its acidity, the wine is relatively stable, more than beer for example; nevertheless, this stability is not absolutely total, and of yeasts in the sweetened wines, of the bacteria in all the cases are likely to develop and cause accidents which are true deteriorations (punctures).

The bacteria of disease are of two types. The acetic bacteria (bacteria of the vinegar) oxidize alcohol in acetic acid; they are aerobic, develop at the surface of the insufficiently full containers. The anaerobic lactic bacteria develop in the mass of the wine and break up various components (glucides, acid organics, glycerol). In fact the same bacteria break up the malic acid during fermentation malolactique ; they are thus useful or harmful, according to transformations' which they produce. The malic acid being degraded more easily, a rational control of the wine making makes it possible to obtain malolactic fermentation without bacterial deteriorations, although are the same micro-organisms which intervene in both cases.

It matters that the limpidity of the wine obtained during maturation is final and that there are not a risk of development of new disorders and deposits of chemical nature, particularly in bottles. The wine must thus not only be clarified, but also stabilized chemically, and that independently of biological stabilization.

Precipitations of salts of the tartaric acid are always to fear and are avoided by treating the wine by the cold, to eliminate the maximum of tartar, possibly by adding an inhibitor of crystallization (acid metatartric). The wine can also be the seat various types of disorders and deposits known under the name of breakages: proteinic breakage, cupric breakage, ferric breakage. The elimination of proteins is obtained by absorption on bentonite. A rational wine making should not bring excessive copper and iron amounts; the possible elimination of these metals is obtained by a potassium ferrocyanide treatment.

There are tests of laboratory making it possible to envisage these various accidents and the processing suitable. With regard to metal breakages, preventive means, i.e. the suppression to the maximum of the contact with the copper or iron hardware, however constitute the best solution to avoid these accidents.

Generally, the various processing of the wine should be implemented only when they are essential; that supposes a certain level of scientific and technical knowledge. Moreover the current evolution, at least in the case of the wines which are not intended for ageing, tends to seek methods of wine making making it possible to obtain quickly, with the minimum of processing, of the wines ready with consumption.

However, its organoleptic characters are also under the dependence of many biological factors, therefore vital, from which interpretation escapes the chemical analysis. They are more particularly the relations between the vineyard, i.e. the vintage, the climatological conditions of the year, i.e. the year, and the quality of the grape, dependent itself on its chemical composition. Besides this circumstance explains the diversity of the types, which constitutes one of the reasons of the interest that the man always found in the consumption of this drink ; it also explains that one cannot conceive the artificial realization of products resembling, even by far, with the high-class wines, whose chemical complexity of composition appears everyday larger

The role of oenology, science of the wine, does not consist in correcting natural defects or making it possible to make a good wine starting from bad grapes, but, while directing the realization of the chemical and biological conversions favorable and by avoiding those which are not it, surely obtaining, starting from a given grape, the best possible wine.

In many countries, the vine exists in partnership with other cultures, providing family consumption or giving some current wine surpluses (co-planted vines of central Italy, for example). In France, the vineyards in monoculture are characterized by their more or less significant surface, their situation (plantations of slopes) and by their orientation (maximum insolation).

One distinguishes various types of wine plantations. There is, initially, the vineyards of mass, which aim initially strong outputs: 80 hl/ha on average, exceptionally 200 hl/ha in Hérault; mechanization, the manure, the chemical processing impose high annual expenses on it. The density of stocks to the hectare is enough low to allow a broad use of the machines. Delivering common beverage wines, the vineyards of mass know phases of overproduction and price-cutting in all the countries.

in second place, the vineyards of vintage are found; the outputs are there comparatively very weak: from 20 to 25 hl/ha on average, 13 to 15 hl/ha for clos-Vougeot. One avoids there as much as possible the manure. Many work can be done only with the hand: warping, picking off, grape harvest according to maturity. Some practise, as the search of the "pourriture noble" (noble rot), which gives exceptional vintages, concern an authentic wine art. From now on, the wines of vintage profit from a very sharp request bus they correspond to a need for products of quality in all the advanced countries. They often feed from the remarkable currents of export, for example that of the cognac, first activity of the Poitou-Charentes area evaluated in value, of which more half of the production is exported.

Exist, in third place, the vineyards intended for the harvest and the marketing of the fresh grape or dryed grapes. They are not very wide in Europe, where 95 p. 100 of the production is vinified ; on the other hand, in North America, two thirds of the grapes are consumed like fruits ; it is the same in South Africa and Australia. This type of vineyard can correspond to very dissimilar economic realities. Traditionally, Greece and Balkans produce dry grapes (grapes of "Corinthe") in small family vineyards. With the opposite, California specialized in the speculative culture of the grape of table and the dryed grapes; they are then true fruit-bearing plantations, treated scientifically and been used by a commercial apparatus for the scale of the United States and world.

Before the phylloxerna crisis, the French vineyards were badly differentiated, in connection with the narrowness of the local exchanges. The new plantations devoted the distinction between vineyards of vintage and vineyards of mass. While the septentrional limit of the vineyards was fixed on the average and lower course of the Loire, out of Champagne, Lorraine and Alsace, the quality assurance made it possible to save the vine in these areas. Into the South, on the contrary, the vine slipped of the slopes towards the large plain and was directed towards the mass production. Nowadays, the French vineyards are typified Europe. A complex legislation, slowly elaborate under the pressure of the wine mediums, determines names (O: ordinary, C: controlled, V.D.Q.S.: wine of higher quality, etc.) as for name "château", it applies to the wine produced to pieces resulting from the cutting of old properties peerage-books or currently belonging to them. The great French vintages gained a world reputation there (Burgundy, Champagne, wines of the Loire, Cotes du Rhone). With its 135 000 ha, the vineyard of Bordeaux delivers at the same time very great vintages and current wines. As for the four departments of the wine South, they remain dedicated to the monoculture of mass even if they succeed in individualizing certain centers of production in the qualitative sense (wines of Minervois or Corbières).

In the Mediterranean countries, which cultivate the vine everywhere, the current wines satisfy initially an active national request. The vine exists in all the areas of Spain, in Portugal, in Italy, in Greece, in Balkans: in vineyards of mass (Spanish Mancha; Pouilles, Lucanie, islands in Italy) and, more often, in vineyards of vintage, entering the foreign markets unequally (Porto, Jerez, Malaga in the Iberian peninsula; Asti, chianti in Italy).

Average Europe does not have that insulated vineyards establish in conditons limits as for their ecology: in Germany, vineyards of the country of Bade, Palatinat, valley of the Rhine and Moselle ; in Switzerland, wines of Valais and the country of Vaud; wines of Moravie; vineyards of Austria of the East; Hungarian wines (tokay), Rumanian (podgoria) ; vineyards of the Crimea and Georgia.

In Africa, the vine is located in the extreme north and the extreme south; in each case, it is related to European colonization. The North African vineyard widest, is directed especially towards the massive production. In South Africa, the vineyard of the Cape was created in XVIIe century by huguenots from France (Charente). It produces grape of table and wines partly exported towards the Anglo-Saxon countries.

America, where one finds vine in a wild state, has two large vineyards. That of California extends on the first buttresses from the Napa mounts and to the south from San Francisco. Able to compete, in the field of the wine, with best the believed European ones, it largely uses a type of vine local, the zinfandel, and produced grape of table. The Argentinian vineyard shelters with the foot of the Andes, the first wine province being that of Mendoza. It is a vineyard of mass. It is also advisable to announce the areas of vineyards of Chile, extending to the south until Valdivia.

Specialized cultures also develop, in particular that of the vine where, to the laic lords and to especially ecclesiastics, appear of the middle-class men wine growers who, in Paris for example, obtain into 1190 of Philippe Auguste prohibition for the Parisian ones to discharge in this city from the wine brought by way from water. The first mention of the Parisian corporation of the "marchands of the eau" (i.e. exporting and significant by water way) relates to the transport of the wine (1121). The vinum francigenum (French wine, i.e. of Ile-de-France) appears towards 1175 in a charter of Henri II Plantagenêt fixing the price of the wine sold on the market of London. The French vineyard, not very concerned still from quality, extends as far as possible towards north, in areas which are about deprived today by it, like Ile-de-France (Parisian vineyards, of Laon, Soissons) or Normandy (vineyards of Caen, of Longueville). One could say of Laon to XIIe century which it was a capital of the wine and, following the example Paris, Rouen is in the medium of XIIe century a large market of this product.