Wset Diploma Unit 5

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Sparkling wine

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wine which bubbles when poured into a glass, an important and growing category of wine. The bubbles form because a certain amount of carbon dioxide has been held under pressure dissolved in the wine until the bottle is unstoppered (see fizziness).

Sparkling wine may vary in as many respects as still wine: it can be any wine colour (it is usually white but pink fizz and sparkling reds such as burgundy (Bourgogne Mousseux) and Australian sparkling Shiraz have enjoyed a certain following); it can be any degree of sweetness (although a high proportion tastes bone dry and may be labelled brut, while Italians specialize in medium sweet spumante); it can vary in alcoholic strength (although in practice most dry sparkling wines are about 12 per cent, while the sweeter, lighter Spumante are between 5.5 and 8 per cent); and it can come from anywhere in the world where wine is produced.

According to European Union regulations, the sweetness level of EU wines must be shown on the label. For official EU definitions, see dosage. Sparkling wines produced outside the EU but sold within the EU do not have to indicate the sweetness level but if it is specified, only the EU-designated terms may be used.

Sparkling wines also vary in fizziness, not just in the actual pressure under which the gas is dissolved in the wine, but also apparently in the character of the foam. Some sparkling wines froth aggressively in the mouth while others bubble subtly. The average size, consistency, and persistence of the bubbles also vary considerably. Study of foam and foaminess, along with research into yeasts, are two of the few areas which unite the (sparkling) wine industry with the beer industry.

To the winemaker, however, the most obvious way in which sparkling wines differ is in how the gas came to be trapped in solution in the wine: traditional method, transversage, transfer, Charmat, or carbonation, in declining order of cost, complication, and likely quality of sparkling wine, together with the rarer méthode ancestrale and méthode dioise. (See sparkling wine-making for details of each method.)

The most famous sparkling wine of all is champagne, the archetypal sparkling wine made in north eastern France, which represents about 8 per cent of global sparkling wine production. A significant proportion of all sparkling wine is made using the same basic method as is used in Champagne (now called the traditional, rather than the champagne, method), much of it from the same grape varieties Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and, to a lesser extent outside Champagne, Meunier, even though different wine regions often stamp their own style on the resulting sparkling wine. Examples of such wines were made with ever-increasing frequency in the 1980s and early 1990s in california, australia, and italy particularly.

A host of fine, very individual sparkling wines is made using the traditional method but with non-champagne grapes, however. The most prodigious example of this is the popular Spanish cava. The loire region of France also produces traditional method sparkling wine in great quantity, notably in saumur. All of France's new crémants also use the traditional method. In almost every wine region in the world with aspirations to quality, some traditional method wine has been made. Wines made by this, the most meticulous method, may be described on the label within Europe as méthode traditionnelle, méthode classique, or méthode traditionnelle classique. Other descriptions include bottle fermented (although strictly speaking wines made by the transfer method, described below, may be labelled 'bottle fermented', while only those made by the traditional method can be labelled 'Fermented in This Bottle').

Similarly, in almost every wine region in the world, Charmat process sparkling wine is made in considerable quantity, often for specific local brands, especially for sekt in Germany and a host of wines such as lambrusco and asti in Italy. Russia has been an enthusiastic market for sparkling wines ever since the imperial court imported such vast quantities of champagne (and base wine to make sparkling) at the end of the 19th century. Today soviet sparkling wine is still made in enormous quantity in both Russia and ukraine. Asti and a number of other low-alcohol, sweet Italian, or Italianate, sparkling wines are made using a variation of the Charmat process.

The transfer method is used for some better-quality branded wines, particularly in Germany and the United States (giving rise to the defiant description on some American sparkling wine labels 'Fermented in This Bottle' for products made by the traditional method).

Some characterful sparkling wines are made eschewing disgorgement and selling the part-fermented, still-sweet wine together with the lees of its second fermentation in bottle. These include some gaillac, limoux, and clairette de die made by specific but similar local methods sometimes called méthode ancestrale.

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bottle fermented

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description of some sparkling wines made either by the traditional method, or by the transfer method. See sparkling wine-making for full details.

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brut

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French word meaning 'crude' or 'raw', adapted by the champagne industry for wines made without (much) added sweetening or dosage. It has come to be used widely for any sparkling wine to indicate one that tastes bone dry. Technically a brut champagne should contain fewer than 15 g/l residual sugar, a maximum level which, in less naturally acidic still wines, would seem medium dry (see sweetness). A wine labelled extra brut should contain less than 6 g/l residual sugar and may incorporate no dosage at all. Particularly dry wines may also be labelled brut natur(e). These have less than 3 g/l residual sugar and are made without dosage. The word bruto may be used in Portugal.

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blanc de blancs
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French for 'white of whites', may justifiably be used to describe white wines made from pale-skinned grapes, as the great majority of them are. The term has real significance, however, only when used for white sparkling wines, in the production of which dark-skinned grapes often predominate. A blanc de blancs champagne, for example, is, unusually, made exclusively from chardonnay grapes

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blanc de noirs

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French for 'white of blacks', describes a white wine made from dark-skinned grapes by pressing them very gently and running the pale juice off the skins as early as possible. Many such still wines have a slightly pink tinge (see white zinfandel and dôle Blanche, for example). The term has a specific meaning in the Champagne region, where it is used to describe a champagne made exclusively from pinot noir and meunier grapes. It is a speciality of the Aube in Champagne. See also vin gris and blush.

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non-vintage

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often abbreviated to NV, a blended wine, particularly champagne or sparkling wine, which may contain the produce of several different vintages, although in champagne-making practice it is usually substantially based on the most recent vintage, to which some additional ingredients from older years, often called 'reserve wines', may be added.

Within the european union, basic table wine may not be sold with a vintage year on it and is in practice often a blend made throughout the year so that the first blend of the winter season, typically, may contain a mixture of wine from both the new and last year's vintages.

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prestige cuvée

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one of several names given to a champagne house's highest-quality wine. At one time the houses saw their non-vintage wine as their greatest expression. Vintage-dated champagne was added to the range and a premium usually charged for it. roederer's Cristal bottling and moët & chandon's named after Dom pérignon scaled new heights, however, and today most of the major champagne firms offer one product available, at a price and, often, in a specially created bottle, in limited quantity at the top of their range.

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mousseux

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French for sparkling. Some mousseux wines are made by the traditional method (see sparkling wine-making) while others may be made by the much less painstaking charmat process.

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frizzante

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Italian wine term for semi-sparkling wine (as opposed to spumante, which is used for fully sparkling wines). Frizzante wines generally owe their bubbles to a partial second fermentation in tank, a sort of interrupted charmat process sparkling wine.

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spumante

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Italian word for sparkling wine from the verb spumare, to foam or froth, (disappearing from labels). The most important of these is asti (once known as Asti Spumante), made from the moscato bianco grape in the provinces of Asti, Cuneo, and Alessandria, of which over 80,000,000 bottles may be made in an average year.

Significant quantities of sparkling wines from chardonnay and pinot noir, the classic grapes of champagne, are also produced in Italy, principally from three areas: the trentino-alto adige, the oltrepò pavese, and franciacorta. The Italians, unlike the Champagne houses, also employ pinot blanc and pinot gris in their blends. Some of these wines are produced using the charmat process, but the majority are fermented in bottle like champagne and are labelled 'metodo classico'. The Talento association of producers of traditional method sparkling wines eliminated the word spumante from their labels, as have those of franciacorta whose DOCG applies only to sparkling wine.

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CIVC

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Thanks to the Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne, champagne is one of the most thoroughly organized wine regions in the world. The CIVC was established in 1941 as a co-operative organization grouping champagne growers, co-operatives, shippers, and houses under the auspices of the government (now represented by a commissioner appointed by the French Ministry of Agriculture). Growers/co-operatives and merchants/champagne houses each have a president to represent them. The CIVC is charged with organizing and controlling the production, distribution, and promotion of the wines of Champagne, as well as undertaking fundamental research for the region. Until 1990 it set a price for the grapes and still intervenes to regulate the size of the harvest and decide whether any of it should be 'blocked', or retained as juice rather than vinified and sold. The CIVC is financed by a levy on production and a tax on champagne sales.

But most importantly the CIVC is responsible for defending the Champenois's exclusive right to use the word 'champagne'. A notable victory was won in the English courts in 1959 and since then the name has achieved legal protection in most major markets, although not in the United States for established brands. The CIVC has fought a number of battles to ensure that the name Champagne is not used for other products, including a cigarette and a brand of perfume.

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Bollinger

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Bollinger
independent Champagne house producing a range of top-quality wines based on Pinot Noir grapes. Bollinger was formed from the de Villermont family's holdings in the village of Ay near Rheims, where the company is still based. In 1829, Jacques Joseph Placide Bollinger, youngest son of a noblewoman and a legal officer in Württemberg, formed a partnership with Amiral Comte Athanase Louis Emmanuel de Villermont and Paul-Joseph Renaudin to form the house of Champagne Renaudin, Bollinger & Cie. In 1837, Jacques Bollinger married de Villermont's daughter Louise Charlotte and became a French citizen. In 1865, the house started to ship low dosage champagne to Britain, which was unusual for a period in which most champagne reaching the country was sweet. Champagne Bollinger received the Royal Warrant as Official Purveyor of Champagne to Queen Victoria in 1884.

Control of the house eventually passed to Jacques's grandson (also named Jacques), who died young, leaving his widow Elizabeth Law 'Lily' Bollinger (1899–1977) in charge. Lily oversaw the family vineyards on foot and bicycle for four decades, enduring the 1944 German bombardment of Ay while sleeping in the Bollinger cellars. After the Second World War, she acquired the Beauregard vineyard at Mutigny as well as vineyards in Grauves, Bisseuil, and Champvoisy, bringing Bollinger's land holdings to 144 ha/356 acres, about 70 per cent of production needs. By the time of her death in 1977, Lily had seen sales double to 1 million bottles a year. She believed that nothing should change the traditional Bollinger style, which is achieved with a backbone of Pinot Noir from the Ay vineyards, a certain proportion of barrel fermentation (unusual for sparkling wine), and tirage in bottles stoppered, unusually, with corks rather than crown caps, often for a decade or more. Bollinger RD ('recently disgorged', with marked autolysis as a result of being aged for a minimum of eight years) is the vintage dated Grande Année with extra age. Rarest of all the Bollinger range of champagnes is the Vieilles Vignes Françaises, a blanc de noirs produced exclusively from ungrafted Pinot Noir vines that grow in a vineyard behind Bollinger's headquarters which was never affected by phylloxera.

Bollinger also owns a majority stake in the saumur house Langlois Chateau, as well as a much more recent minority stake in Delamain of Cognac. In 1985, Bollinger daringly took a 40 per cent share of Petaluma in south australia and now have a joint venture Tapanappa in Wrattonbully, South Australia. In 2005, the company bought the neighbouring house of Ayala. While other Champagne houses became defensive, Bollinger rose admirably to the challenge posed by critics of champagne in the early 1990s by issuing the Bollinger Charter of Ethics and Quality, in which it volunteered conditions for the production of its wines which protected both wine quality and the Bollinger name. Chief architect of the Bollinger Charter was the outspoken Christian Bizot, president of the house and nephew of Lily Bollinger. On his retirement he was succeeded by his nephew Ghislain de Montgolfier. His son Etienne also works for the company.

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Krug

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Krug
small but important Champagne house founded in Rheims in 1843 by Johann-Joseph Krug, who was born in Mainz, Germany, in 1800. By 1893 the firm occupied its current modest cellars, around whose courtyard the Krug family still live. Krug does not make an ordinary non-vintage champagne but specializes exclusively in prestige cuvées, of which the multi-vintage Grande Cuvée is the flagship. Consistently producing champagne that is among the most admired in its region of origin, Krug is the only house to persist in barrel fermentation of its entire production of base wine, in old 205-l/54-gal casks. Wines from at least six and sometimes nine different vintages make up the blend for Grande Cuvée, one of the most distinctive and long lived of champagnes. Grande Cuvée, with new packaging and a special bottle, succeeded the rather fuller-bodied Private Cuvée as Krug's most important product in 1979. In 1971, Krug acquired and replanted the Clos du Mesnil, a walled vineyard of less than 2 ha/5 acres. Its Chardonnay grapes provide one of Champagne's very few single-vineyard, or cru, wines of which the 1979 vintage was the first. Small quantities of the finest vintage Krug are released as Krug Collection about ten years after their initial release. Although the firm is run by members of the fifth and sixth generation of champagne-making Krugs, it has been owned by LVMH since 1999.

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LVMH

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scrupulously even-handed acronym for Moët Hennessy-Louis Vuitton, the French luxury goods conglomerate which has a dominant interest in the champagne industry, not least through its subsidiaries, which include moët & chandon, krug, and veuve clicquot, and a substantial position in Cognac through Hennessy. Its distribution, and production, companies throughout the world play an important part in the international wine and spirits trade. In 1987, LVMH acquired a 12 per cent stake in the Guinness Group, which rose to a 24 per cent stake in 1990. In 1997, LVMH exchanged its shares in Guinness and Grand Metropolitan for 11 per cent in the newly created Diageo amalgamation of the two, thus becoming the largest shareholder in this dominant drinks group. In 1998, LVMH acquired a substantial stake in Ch d'yquem, while its chief executive Bernard Arnault became co-owner of Ch cheval blanc. For more details of LVMH's champagne interests, see moët & chandon.

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Pérignon, Dom

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(1639–1715), Benedictine monk who has gone down in history as 'the man who invented champagne'. The title is the stuff of fairy-tales: the transition from still to sparkling wine was an evolutionary process rather than a dramatic discovery on the part of one man. The life of Dom Pérignon was in fact devoted to improving the still wines of Champagne, and he deserves his place in the history books for that reason. Brother Pierre Pérignon arrived at the Abbey of Hautvillers, north of Épernay, in 1668. His role was that of treasurer, and in the 17th century that meant being in charge of the cellars. He collected tithes from surrounding villages in the form of grapes and wine, fermenting and blending until he created wines that sold for twice as much as those of the abbey's rivals. Dom Pérignon introduced many practices that survive in the process of modern wine production, among them severe pruning, low yields, and careful harvesting. He also experimented to a great extent with the blending process, and was one of the first to blend the produce of many different vineyards. Dom Pérignon produced still white and red wines, favouring black grapes because a secondary fermentation was less likely. Ironically, he was often thwarted in his endeavours by the refermentation process, which produced the style of wine that was eventually to prove so popular. His fame as the 'inventor' of champagne probably spread after his death, embellished by Dom Grossard, the last treasurer of the abbey, which closed at the time of the French Revolution. More modern champagne producers have jumped on the bandwagon, promoting the idea of a founder figure. Eugene Mercier registered the brand name Dom Pérignon before moët & chandon acquired it and used it to launch the first champagne marketed as a prestige cuvée, a 1921 vintage launched in 1928.

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Pol Roger

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Champagne house founded in Épernay in 1849 and still in family hands. The founder's sons changed their surnames to Pol-Roger by deed poll, Pol being a champenois variant of Paul. The wines rank high among the top champagne houses for quality, although it is one of the smaller grandes marques. Pol Roger owns 85 ha/210 acres of vineyards on prime sites in the Vallée d'Épernay and on the Côte des Blancs and latterly on the Montagne de Reims. Particularly deep cellars house 6.5 million bottles, representing five years' supply. Sir Winston Churchill was a devotee of the house, even naming his racehorse Pol Roger. The compliment was repaid after his death, when all non-vintage labels exported to Britain were edged in black for 25 years. The Sir Winston Churchill Cuvée was launched in 1984 as Pol Roger's prestige cuvée. The company has been managed by the great-grandsons of the original Pol Roger, Christian Pol-Roger and Christian de Billy (who retired in 1998), and the son of the latter, Hubert de Billy.

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Roederer, Louis

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family-owned Champagne house known both for its early links with the Russian court and for its extensive vineyard ownership. The original company was founded by a M. Dubois around 1776; Louis Roederer joined in 1827, becoming owner in 1833. By the second half of the century, russia had become the major market for Champagne Louis Roederer: 666,386 bottles out of a total company production of 2.5 million were exported there in 1873. In 1877, the special Cuvée Cristal Louis Roederer was commissioned by Tsar Alexander II, who wanted his champagne in clear glass crystal bottles so that it would stand out. The bottles were so strong that they did not need a punt. The creation of Cristal (sold in clear glass bottles without a punt to this day) strengthened links with the imperial court, but in 1917 the Russian Revolution brought an immediate 80 per cent loss of its market. Camille Orly-Roederer, widow of the great-nephew of Louis, rebuilt the company after this blow, in particular by strengthening Roederer's vineyard holdings at a time when other houses were selling, a move many later regretted. By the mid 1990s, 180 ha/444 acres supplied 80 per cent of Roederer's requirements, thereby allowing the house to remain unusually independent. Mainly thanks to these vineyard holdings, Roederer produces far more vintages of Cristal than is usual for a prestige cuvée. The best cuvées of almost every harvest are blended to make a vintage Cristal, except in notably poor years such as 1968 and 1972. In 1993, the house acquired 60 per cent of the capital of the holding company of Champagne Deutz. The company diversified into st-estèphe in Bordeaux in the 1990s, acquiring Ch Beauséjour in 1992 and Ch de Pez in 1994. Outside France, the company briefly owned Heemskerk Vineyards in tasmania and has invested with considerable success in the Anderson Valley, near the mendocino coast. Roederer Estate, one of California's finest sparkling wines, was first released in 1988. Camille Orly-Roederer's grandson Jean-Claude Rouzaud runs the company today.

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Moët & Chandon

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Champagne house producing the single most important champagne brand in the world, and part of the vast LVMH group. The Champagne house was founded by Claude Moët, born in 1683 to a family which had settled in the Champagne district during the 14th century. He inherited vineyards and became a wine merchant, establishing his own firm in 1743. He was succeeded by his son Claude-Louis Nicolas and his grandson Jean-Rémy Moët, who used his impressive connections to open up international markets for his wine. Jean-Rémy was a close personal friend of Napoleon Bonaparte, and was awarded the cross of the Légion d'Honneur in the final years of the emperor's rule. In 1832, Jean-Rémy handed over the firm to his son Victor and his son-in-law Pierre-Gabriel Chandon. At the same time, the company acquired the Abbey of Hautvillers and its vineyards. In 1962, Moët & Chandon's shares were quoted for the first time on the Paris Stock Exchange, leading to a period of considerable expansion. First, Moët bought shares in Ruinart Père et Fils, the oldest Champagne house, in 1963. Five years later, it acquired a 34 per cent stake in Parfums Christian Dior, increasing this to a 50 per cent stake shortly afterwards. In 1970, Moët took control of Champagne Mercier, a popular brand in France, and capped it all by buying out Dior and merging with Hennessy in 1971 to form the holding company Moët Hennessy. The acquisitions continued unabated, including, in 1981, a stake in the American importers Schieffelin, which incorporated a 49 per cent share in H. Sichel Söhne in Germany, producers of Blue Nun, until the Sichel family bought it back in 1992. At one stage this American investment also involved the Simi winery in Sonoma, Moët having established Domaine Chandon, a seminal sparkling California wine-making establishment in the Napa Valley, in 1973.

This was by no means the company's first venture into the New World. Bodegas Chandon was established in Argentina in 1960, and Provifin, now Chandon do Brasil, followed in 1974, both companies making considerable amounts of wine for the domestic market, much of it sparkling. In Germany, too, a sekt business had been established in the form of Chandon GmbH in 1968. In 1985, the group founded Domaine Chandon, Australia, to make a premium sparkling wine sold as Domaine Chandon in Australia and Green Point in the UK, and in 1987 established a company in Spain for the production of a cava although the winery and vineyard associated with Masía Chandon were subsequently sold to Freixenet.

In 1987, Moët Hennessy merged with the Louis Vuitton Group, makers of luxury leather goods and then owners of Champagne houses Veuve Clicquot, Canard-Duchêne, and Henriot, and Givenchy perfumes. The LVMH group's composition continues to evolve but in 2005 it owned five Champagne houses: Moët & Chandon, Mercier, Ruinart, Veuve Clicquot, and Krug (having once also owned Pommery, and Lanson briefly while stripping it of its extensive vineyard holdings before selling it on). Of these, Moët & Chandon and Mercier are run most closely in tandem.

Moët, the brand, continues to sell at over twice the rate of its nearest competitors and claims that one in four bottles of Champagne exported comes from the house. It is the leading brand of champagne in most world markets with a share of the champagne market in the United States that can be as high as 50 per cent.

The house prestige cuvée is named after Dom Pérignon, the legendary figure of the Abbey of Hautvillers, and broke new ground in terms of packaging, pricing, and qualitative ambitions when it was launched in 1928.

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Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin

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Champagne house as famous for its eponymous founder, the first great champagne widow (veuve in French), as for its wines. Nicole Barbe Ponsardin (1777–1866) married François Clicquot, an owner of Champagne vineyards, in 1798. The wedding took place in a Champagne cellar as churches were not yet reconsecrated following the French Revolution. François Clicquot died in 1805, leaving Mme Clicquot in charge of the company, which she renamed Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin. The widow steered the house carefully through the turbulent years of the First and Second Empires, defying Napoleon's blockades to ship the wine to Russia, and finding an export market in virtually every European court. 'La Grande Dame' is credited with inventing the riddling process called remuage, and adapting a piece of her own furniture into the first riddling table for that purpose. She devised the famous yellow label, still used for the non-vintage wine. On her death, the company passed to her former chief partner, another shrewd businessman, Édouard Werlé, and the house remained in the hands of the Werlé family until in 1987 it became part of the Moët Hennessy-Louis Vuitton group (see lvmh). The house style is based on Pinot Noir grapes and, in particular, those grown at Bouzy, where the house has large holdings. La Grande Dame is Clicquot's prestige cuvée, named, of course, after the widow. In 1990, the Champagne house purchased a majority stake in the western australian winery Cape Mentelle and its New Zealand subsidiary cloudy bay, completing the purchase in 2000.

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Codorníu

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the world's largest producer of bottle-fermented sparkling wines made by the traditional method. The Codorníu group incorporates the Spanish cava brands Codorníu and Rondel, the still wine Masia Bach, and Raimat which makes both Cava and still wine (see costers del segre) but 65 per cent of its turnover is earned from sales of Cava. The history of Codorníu dates back to 1551, when the Codorníu family established their first winery in San Sadurní de Noya, penedès, in Spanish Cataluña. In 1659, the heiress to the Codorníu winery, María Ana Codorníu, married a member of the Raventós family. A direct descendant, Josep Raventós, decided to produce sparkling wine, uncorking the first bottle of Spanish wine made in the image of champagne in 1872. Within ten years, the style was popular across Spain, and, as a result, Codorníu can claim to be the wine on which the Cava industry was founded. The group's Cava is made from Parellada, Macabeo, and Xarel-lo grapes (no still wine is bought in) and 10 per cent of the blend is usually older reserve wine. A vintage premium Cava made substantially from Chardonnay was launched in 1992, named Anna de Codorníu after María Ana. Since then, Chardonnay has become a common ingredient in many Codorníu Cavas. In 1992, the group opened Codorníu Napa, a new winery in the carneros district of California, since renamed Artesa. More than $50 million have been invested in a winery at Raimat. In 1997, Codorníu acquired the traditional Bodegas Bilbaínas firm in the Rioja Alta, a major investment outside its Catalan base; then in 2000, it acquired a controlling stake in Cellers de Scala Dei, the oldest serious winery in Priorat. Also in 2000, the group built Legaris, a brand new winery in Ribera del Duero.

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grower

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the all-important producer of the raw material for wine-making. This individual may be called a grape-grower, more precisely a vine-grower, possibly even a wine-grower if he or she also vinifies. Terms in other languages include vigneron and viticulteur in French, and vignaiolo in Italian. Wine producers who grow their own grapes and vinify them into wine but on a limited scale are often referred to somewhat carelessly and often inaccurately as small growers. A significant proportion of all vine-growers produce only grapes, however, which they sell to co-operatives, merchant-bottlers (see négociant), or larger wine operations.

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co-operatives

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ventures owned jointly by a number of different members, are extremely important as wine producers and have the advantage for their members of pooling wine-making and marketing resources and costs. Collectively, they usually have access to a broad range of financial advantages, including subsidies in the european union, over individual producers. In most countries they also enjoy the commercial advantage of being able to describe their wines as bottled by the producer, using such reassuring phrases as mis(e) en bouteille à la propriété and erzeugerabfüllung more usually associated with much smaller, individually managed wine enterprises. The better co-operatives are becoming increasingly skilled not just at wine-making but also at marketing specific bottlings designed to look and taste every bit as distinctive as the individually produced competition. The worst co-operatives play almost exclusively with subsidies and politics. Co-operatives are at their strongest in areas where wine's selling price is relatively low and where the average size of individual holdings is small, although co-operatives are also quite significant in champagne and there are several in the médoc, for example. The majority of wine co-operatives were formed in the early 1930s in the immediate aftermath of the Depression.
France
Since 1975, more than half of the wine produced in France has been produced by co-operatives, and the total area of vineyard owned by their members is also more than half the French total. The number of members, or adhérents, of France's caves coopératives (often referred to locally simply as la cave) represented almost half of all French vine-growers in the mid 1990s, but the average number of members of each co-operative is declining (down from 240 in the 1960s to 160 in the 1990s) as holdings are amalgamated and members were encouraged to grub up less suitable vineyards by the EU vine pull scheme. The total number of French co-operatives is declining too, although there were over 850 in the early 2000s. They are a particularly strong force in the languedoc and roussillon, the greater rhône valley, provence, and corsica, where la cave can dominate local economic life. Although the co-operatives are being restructured and amalgamated into much bigger groupings, it is by no means unusual for a single village in Languedoc-Roussillon to boast two caves coopératives, typically distinguished by political orientation.

The co-operatives produce an impressive quantity of appellation contrôlée wine, nearly half of the country's total, and those which have established a reputation for particularly sound AC wines outside their own region include La Chablisienne of chablis, the co-operative at Tain l'hermitage, Mont Tauch in ROUSSILLON, the Plaimont co-operative organization in gascony, and a number of alsace co-operatives, notably that of Turckheim. The co-operatives' speciality, however, is vins de pays. Their combined output of these intensely local wines represents three-quarters of the national total, and is considerably more than their (fast declining) combined total output of wine at its most basic, vin de table.

Co-operatives have been prime targets for flying winemakers. The average quality of wine made in French co-ops has improved since the early 1990s but their sales and marketing expertise has not in general, a major factor in France's crise viticole.
References
http://www.ccvf.coop/sites/ccvf/;

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Merchants

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The French term most often translated as merchant is négociant, most often a producer/bottler rather than a specialist retailer (known as a caviste in French and still a relatively rare phenomenon), since so many wine purchases in France have been made direct from the producer (vente directe) or, increasingly, at the supermarket (grande surface). See négociant and Bordeaux trade for more details.

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négociant

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négociant
French term for a merchant and one used particularly of wine merchants who buy in grapes, must, or wine, blend different lots of wine within an appellation, and bottle the result under their own label. Making a perfectly balanced blend from a number of imperfect parts is a potentially noble calling, but one that once provided so many opportunities for adulteration and fraud that it brought the entire profession into question, if not ill repute, at least until the late 1980s. Nowadays, with the bureaucracy involved in the appellation contrôlée system, cheating requires real ingenuity

The role of the négociant is particularly worthwhile in burgundy, where the oldest négociants, traditionally concentrated in Beaune, have been joined by a new breed of smaller operation, often run alongside a grower's own domaine. So many individual growers produce tiny quantities from each of a number of different appellations that it can make sense to make up commercially more significant quantities and bottle them together. Many of the larger Burgundy négociants have significant vineyard holdings of their own. bouchard père et fils and Boisset, for example, are two of the côte d'or's most subtantial vineyard owners. Louis Latour, Louis Jadot, and Joseph Drouhin are other important Burgundian négociants. The term négociant-éleveur implies that the négociant oversees the élevage of the wine it sells.

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Price

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The regional organization in Champagne is the oldest of the French regional associations, and has powers and services which extend beyond grape price determination. The Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne (civc) has in its time determined grape prices by means of a relatively complex series of calculations (see champagne).