AOC or Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée

Official sign of quality.
To be able to claim the AOC, a wine must meet several criteria:
– it comes from a specific geographical area corresponding to a distinctive terroir.
– the grape varieties and growing methods correspond to loyal and constant use.
– the methods of elaboration, the analytical criteria and the gustative quality are codified and regularly controlled.
The rules of each AOC (“cahier des charges”) are published in a decree.
There are 54 AOCs in the Bordeaux region.