I thought I posted this bit of commentary yesterday. My humblest apologies if you find it elsewhere:
Overhaul of labeling rules stirs up wine wars
To my pea brain, everything is a marketing tool and so goes the use of AVAs, DOCs, AOCs, etc. That's OK. There has to be some way of identifying products, especially wine. Still in all, the folks over in Europe have had a lot of wine flow under the bridge over two millenia and hence have had a chance to sort out what can be expected from a certain chunk of land. It would seem in the USA people are not willing to wait and see. Where, perhaps, in Europe they have said that, "Gee, the wine from this area is really yummy. Let's designate the area XYZ as a great wine place," in the USA folks seem to be saying, "Hey, let's designate area XYZ as a great wine place and see if that helps sales." Am I being too cyncical again?