The Wine Lover: French regulation and New World discovery

The wine world is split into two encompassing paradigms. These are commonly labeled the New World and the Old World.
New World wines come from places that do not have ancient wine-making traditions, such as Australia, Chile, South Africa, Napa and, of course, the famous Santa Cruz region in California.
Most Old World wines are European. France, Spain, Italy and Germany all fall in the Old World category.
Many of the traditions of the Old World have been brought to the New World wine regions. The New World grows mostly the same grapes —cabernet, pinot noir, chardonnay, et cetera — and wine makers often try to make wines that taste like Old World wines. We even call some of our red blends “Bordeaux blends,” and in the 1940s and ’50s, we would write “burgundy” on a bottle of pinot noir, because they grow pinot noir in Burgundy, France.
However, there is one tradition we haven’t taken from the Old World, and that is the tradition of regulation.
In France, you are only allowed to grow certain grapes in certain regions to make what is considered a “serious” wine and be classified under the AOC, the French wine classification system.
Let’s take the red wines of Burgundy, for example: In Burgundy, everyone grows pinot noir. Depending on what village or vineyard those grapes are coming from, your wine will get a government classification of “grand cru,” “premier cru” or a lower classification of “village wine.”
Even if you are making an incredible pinot noir every year, if the grapes aren’t coming from the right place, it will only be allowed to be labeled as a village wine. And if you decide to think outside the box and grow a different grape, such as syrah or cabernet franc, the French mounties aren’t going to come arrest you, but you also won’t be allowed to have your wine classified even as a lower village wine.
In the U.S. and all other New World regions, we have not adapted these government classifications and regional stipulations. In Napa (the Disneyland of wine), where cabernet sauvignon is the prized grape and fetches oftentimes hundreds of dollars a bottle, there is still no classification system. There are certainly wine label stipulations concerning region and sub-region; for example, you cannot label a wine “Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon” if the grapes were grown in Lodi. But there is no government classification system to show that Howell Mountain is a more prestigious cabernet sauvignon region than any sub-region in Lodi.
That is most certainly a good thing. Not only does less regulation allow winemakers to be more creative with new and different grape varieties and techniques, but it keeps the free market of wine unfettered by red tape. Imagine if California wine regions began lobbying for and against different beneficial government classifications.
We have learned a great many things from our winemaking friends across the pond, but regulation is one I think best to leave behind.
Austin Twohig is a certified sommelier and partner in The Santa Cruz Experience, which conducts winery tours in the Santa Cruz Mountains. E-mail him at au****@th********************.com.