The European Union wine growing zones is a tool used in the common European Union wine regulations to regulate certain aspects of winemaking. The zones differ in terms of climate and examples of what is regulated by wine growing zone are required grape maturity at harvest and allowed levels of chaptalisation. There are 21 wine producing countries in the European Union, with 14 of them having significant levels of production. During the 2004-2005 vintage, total European Union wine production was around 184 million hectoliters (4.8 billion gallons) which accounted for nearly 70% of total worldwide production. Of that total nearly 55% was classified as table wine with 4% used in the production of grape based Distilled spirits such as Armagnac and Cognac. The remaining 41% were produced as "quality wine"-wine that produced under one of the quality wine designation in a country's appellation systems such as Germany's QmP & QbA classifications, France's Appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC), Spain's Denominación de Origen (DO) and Italy's Denominazione di origine controllata (DOC) systems. In 1997, the European Union had over 3.4 million hectare (8.4 million acres) planted under vine which accounted for nearly 44% of the world's wine, table and raisin grape production.
Read more about European Union Wine Growing Zones: Wine Zones
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