What Happens When You Can No Longer Trust the Most Powerful People in Wine
This was hard to write but I can’t keep quiet about it anymore
Sometimes the worst people have all the power.
In wine, the people with the most power aren’t wine critics, wholesalers, or even social media wine influencers.
It’s another group whose power is seldom talked about.
Governing wine authorities.
These bodies come under many names from the Appellation d’origine contrôlée in Frence to the Denominaciones de Origen Protegidas in Spain. They may have their roots in Europe but nowadays, pretty much every wine region in the world has a governing authority of some kind.
They are supposed to protect the quality of their region’s wines by bestowing protected status on wines that pass a set of rules.
Names like Rioja, Barolo, Chianti, Gevrey-Chambertin — and thousands of other regions — all have protected status. Winemakers can only label their wines as such if they adhere to these rules.
As a winemaker, getting a famous local wine region on your label can make or break your wine because wine drinkers trust these names.
