French wine is produced in several regions throughout France, on over 800,000 hectares (over 2 million acres) of vineyards, and in a typical year between 50 and 60 million hectolitres of wine is produced, or some 7 to 8 billion bottles. uk/Client/Stat_2004_FR.pdf" target="_blank">OIV - Situation du secteur vitivinicole mondial en 2004 France thus has the world's second-largest total vineyard surface (behind _Spain) and competes with Italy for the position of having the world's largest wine production. The earliest history of French wine goes back to the 6th century BC, and many of France's regions count their wine-making history to Roman times. Over the last several hundred years, France has been the most influential country in the wine world: France is the source of more well-known grape varieties (such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc and Syrah) and winemaking practices than any other country, the names of many French wine regions such as Bordeaux, Burgundy and Champagne are well-known throughout the world, and the style of top French wines have long been the benchmark for winemaking in most wine-producing countries of the world. French wine therefore plays an enormously important role in French identity and pride, and the combination of French wine and the equally influential French gastronomy has been an important one. Over the last decades, however, international competition in the wine industry has gotten much more fierce, and France has been challenged both by winemakers of the New World and by traditional wine-producing countries in southern Europe, while domestic consumption of wine has decreased. Since the French wine industry is very heterogeneous, and ranges from production of very cheap table wine to expensive First Growths and similar "luxury" wines, these changes have hit some very hard and others not at all: while some regions are plagued with constant overproduction of low-quality wines that can't find buyers, and many smaller growers have an increasingly difficult time to make a living, some top producers are more profitable than ever before.
Two central concepts to better-quality French wines are the notion of terroir and the Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC) system. "Terroir wines" reflect their place of origin, which are therefore carefully specified on labels of French wine, usually in terms of which appellation the wine comes from. The appellation rules closely define which grape varieties and winemaking practices that are allowed in each of France's several hundred geographically defined appellations, and those rules must be followed by all producers who wish to use an AOC designation for their wines.
