Vin de pays is a
French term meaning "country wine". Vins de pays are a step in the French wine classification which is above the
table wine (
Vin de table) classification, but below the
VDQS and
Appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) classifications. Legislation on the
Vin de pays terminology was created in 1973 and passed in 1979,
[1] allowing producers to distinguish wines that were made using grape varieties or procedures other than those required by the AOC rules, without having to use the simple and commercially non-viable table wine classification. Unlike table wines, which are only indicated as being from France,
Vin de pays carries a geographic designation of origin, the producers have to submit the wine for analysis and tasting, and the wines have to be made from certain
varieties or blends. Regulations regarding varieties and labelling practices are typically more lenient than the regulations for AOC wines.
There are three tiers of Vin de Pays regional, departmental and local.[1]
There are six regional Vin de Pays, which cover large areas of France. The most voluminous contributor to this category of wines is Vin de Pays d'Oc, from the Languedoc-Roussillon area in Mediterranean France. The second largest volume of Vin de Pays wines is produced as Vin de Pays du Jardin de France, a designation that applies to wines from the whole Loire Valley. The other ones are Vin de Pays du Comté Tolosan (south-west), Vin de Pays de Méditerranée (south-east, Provence and Corsica) and Vin de Pays des Comtés Rhodaniens (Rhone valley). Two further regional Vin de Pays designations, Vin de Pays de l'Atlantique (Bordeaux and Charentes (Cognac)) and Vin de Pays Vignobles de France (all of wine-making France) were approved by French authorities in 2007, but (together with Vin de Pays de Gaules for the Beaujolais region) remain disputed[2] and as of July 2009, they remained unpublished in the Official Journal of the European Union[3] due to actions taken by other French wine producers.
Each regional Vin de Pays is divided into several departmental Vins de Pays, of which there are about 50.[1] The names are derived from the French departments in question and the limits exactly the same than the department's borders. For example, Vin de Pays du Gard is one of the Vins de Pays produced within Vins de Pays d'Oc using grapes from the Gard department and the Vin de Pays de Charente-maritime is produced in the Cognac area. Approximately one third of the French departments don't produce Vin de Pays, for example Côte d'Or in Burgundy and Gironde in Bordeaux, or because the climate is not suited to produce wine at all, like the Bretagne, Normandy and Nord-Pas de Calais regions.
