Agrément

One of the requirements of the French appellation controlée system is that in order to be able to call your wine Côtes du Rhône, you not only have to have vineyards within the appellation, you also, among numerous other conditions, have to present your finished wine for tasting and analyses.   Once you are ready to present your wines, there is a first form to fill out in which you declare, for the entire harvest, the surface area of vineyards and the quantity of wine that was made from those parcels that year.   The second form you send in when you are ready for them to come collect the tank samples.  Each tank in the winery must bear a number, the volume of wine it contains and also the wine it contains; for example: 

Tank #2, 65 hectoliters, Côtes du Rhone Rouge

Yesterday they came to collect the samples for our wines, it was a very interesting experience.

The man is holding what they call a canne à pêche (a fishing pole) used to take tank samples, this one was designed to hold 4 bottles.  I plunged the bottles down into the wine and held them there until all the air bubbled out and the bottles were full.  He then corked them, stuck labels on them and  gave one back to me.  There's one bottle for  the tasting, one that will be analysed, one that they will keep as a control bottle and one that I have to keep for 2 months as a control.  During this time you are not allowed to transfer the wines to different tanks or to blend them further. 

I asked how long it would take to get the results and he told me that they would be tasted next Thursday,  on Friday I can call the Centre de Dégustation for the results. If they are refused you can present them 2 more times, if, for the third time a wine is refused, it is automatically sent to the distillery to become industrial alcohol!
Let's keep our fingers crossed that they pass the first time! I am quite confident that they will...