History
Government control of agricultural products began with the law of August 1, 1905, granting the government authority to define the official boundaries for the production of certain agricultural products. At first, the appellations were not designed as measures of quality of the produce and failed to resolve the problem of over-production of wine, a problem that continues to this day.
A second law, passed on May 6, 1919, gave the courts power to act in cases where the regulations were not being followed. This once again was an initial failure, as the resulting prosecutions proved to be long and fraught with difficulty.
In a further attempt to address problems in the wine industry, the INAO was created by a decree of July 30, 1935 to cover all administrative, judiciary and professional aspects of appellation control. Initially, INAO was a Comité rather than an Institut. The first AOC laws were passed in 1936, and most of the classical wines from Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne and Rhône had their initial set of AOC regulations before the end of 1937.
In 1990, the economic success of the appellations led parliament in a law of July 2 to extend the powers of the INAO to cover all agricultural produce.
Since January 1, 2007, the Institute is renamed Institut national de l'origine et de la qualité and also guarantees organic and Label Rouge certifications. In spite of the name change it retains the abbreviation INAO.
Read more about this topic: Institut National Des Appellations D'Origine
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