| Publication |
2010.
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| Summary/Abstract |
There is something highly paradoxical about the French wine Appellations d'Origine Contrôlées (AOCs): the more they are considered to be suspect, the more they expand to other countries and products! Since their invention they have been suspected of not conveying reliable information. At the same time, supporters of quality wine have prayed for the development of a quality wine market and seen the suspicions concerning them as a threat that these actors have collectively tried to answer. But neither the accusation nor the defence has managed to close the debate. Accusation after accusation, the assessors acknowledgement of being able to define quality have changed, as has quality itself and the role given to AOCs. Far from sweeping away the old procedures, the new solutions have cohabited with them, transforming the wine market into a complex market hosting hundreds of thousands of brands and a variety of uses of quality signs by wine drinkers. Finally, contrary to most economists' fears, neither AOCs nor quality itself work by imposing themselves on the market actors. The greatest strength of AOCs may not be an ability to deceive consumers, but their capacity to raise doubts and to trigger considerable efforts by their defenders to quieten them.
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