The Medoc Appellations & Regimentation Information

In the Medoc there are eight appellations of wine - two regional appellations, Médoc and Haut Medoc, and six communal appellations.

The Medoc Appellations Reglementation Information

Plantation rights
Local Government grants the permission to plant vines - Plantation Rights - records of which are in the hands of the Viticulture Branch of Customs and Excise.
These rights may have two origins: the rights to replant as a result of uprooting vines enable a vineyard to be renewed
regularly and Ministerial Rights created by the Ministry of Agriculture for limited surface areas. These latter are new rights basically destined to help young growers just setting up.
The Grape-Varieties
Whereas the choice of graft-stock is unrestricted, the number of authorized grape-varieties is limited: Cabernet-Sauvignon, Merlot Noir, Cabernet-Franc, Cot (or Malbec), Petit Verdot and Carmenère are the only ones authorized in the Medoc
An appellation’s boundaries
A distinction must be drawn between the geographical area, that is the communes where the wine of the AOC concerned may be produced and the delimited area which includes all the precisely identified parcels whose production may be claimed as AOC.
The criteria taken into consideration concern essentially the soil
and subsoil, the relief and all the possible water sources. With the Médoc's Atlantic climate, this last factor is particularly important, for a high quality vineyard needs only a moderate water supply but it must not be excessively dry