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Appellation d’Origine Protégée

In France, the new designation AOP is valid for the highest wine quality level "wines with protected origin", which corresponds to a quality wine or PDO (protected origin). The reason for this was the new EU wine market regulation that came into effect in August 2009. This means that an origin-controlled quality system is now mandatory throughout the EU, which divides wines into two classes, namely without and with indication of origin. However, the old traditional designation AOC may continue to be used. The category VDQS (Vin Délimité de Qualité Supérieure), introduced in 1949, which had been considered a preliminary stage of AOC, was deleted without replacement. The production conditions had to be prepared according to AOP standards and the connection to the terroir had to be proven. Only then was an upgrading to AOP possible.

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