Appellation Terra Nova Controlée

Listening to the Fisheries Broadcast the other night, I was drinking a glass of red wine. I picked up the bottle and glanced at the label. It's a wine I drink often, so I know what the label says, and I associate what's written there with the taste I can be sure of when I uncork the bottle.

The most important information is usually in small letters underneath the name of the vineyard where the grapes the wine is made from, were grown. The label read "RASTEAU, Appellation CÔtes du Rhone Villages ControlÉe. The wine was grown around the village of Rasteau in the valley of the Rhone river in the south of France. Wine with the Appellation CÔtes du Rhone Villages ControlÉe name is subject to strict controls imposed by a board of winegrowers upon themselves.

Appellation ControlÉe is a guarantee of quality which came about after a series of devastating plant diseases and insect problems in the late 1800's crippled the French wine industry. Vineyard owners were replanting their vines and rebuilding their businesses in the early 1900's. The shortage of wine at the time created tempting conditions for fraud. A lot of money could be made by bringing in wine from other areas and claiming it was from a premium region like Burgundy or areas of the Rhone.

By the early 1920's, there was a movement to create laws to protect consumers and to guarantee the quality of wines from certain areas. Chateauneuf du Pape, about 20 kilometres from Rasteau where the wine in my glass originated, is where a set of rules was put in place that re-established France as one of, if not the best, wine-producing countries in the world.

The rules set up by the growers defined the boundaries of the area that could produce Chateauneuf du Pape wine. Their rules listed only certain approved grapes for the region, how those grapes could be grown, harvested and mixed to produce the wine. The maximum yield per hectare, the minimum alcohol level, wine-making processes, trellis systems and the official sorting of grapes at harvest were all laid out in these rules.
Pretty well everything from A to Z is covered. All in the name of guaranteeing quality. Each and every rule was decided upon by the very people who would have to obey it.
To be sure of that, the rules were to be enforced. To be certain that everything was up to snuff, there was even a mandatory wine-tasting panel put in place. Now there's a job I wouldn't mind having. I wonder what you'd have to pay them to get on that panel?
The agreement in Chateauneuf du Pape became the framework for the Appellation ControlÉe laws created throughout the key wine regions in France and later copied in many other wine-producing countries.

As I sipped my glass of ruby red Rasteau, I could taste how successfully the French wine industry has regulated itself back from the brink of disaster.

At the same time, entering my ears was the Fisheries Broadcast with the latest news of the disaster that is the fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador. Once reputed as home to one of the finest food sources on this planet, the waters bordering this province are providing a good living to very, very few and an iffy future for the rest.

Does the example of French vineyards have something to teach us?

Number one, if you regulate yourself, you can choose the standards you want for your product and then enforce them upon yourself. If everyone involved in the fishery can find a way to work together, then every individual person has a stake in succeeding at every step of the process.

In 1608 Newfoundland exported 20 million pounds of salt fish annually. Because of depleted stocks we can't do that or even close today, so we must replace quantity with quality. The highest kind of quality, and priced accordingly.

Ecosustainability is a big issue today and getting bigger.

So we must impose upon ourselves rules to protect the species by restricting the fishery to sustainable fishing methods. No more soggy inedible fish coming ashore from gill nets unreachable because of weather. No more tearing up the ocean bottom and dragging, then discarding tonnes of by-catch.

Impose on ourselves means of handling the catch. With kid gloves would be a good idea.

Insist on adding maximum value here at home to bring the product as close to table-ready as it can be, while ensuring meaningful employment for our own people.
Establish a trademark for ourselves. Newfoundland and Labrador is known for its cold, clean water that produces firm sweet-tasting flesh on the creatures that are harvested here.

Create an information package that explains what regulations we have put in place, upon ourselves, to guarantee the highest quality product.

The French Appellation rebirth was accompanied by a marketing programme. It is a must. Sell to people whose have two important characteristics: Currency that is worth more than ours and a keen interest in the quality of the food they eat. The U.S.A., who we have been relying on for too many years, has neither.

Employ marketing agents to speak to potential customers in their own language. It is good business. At our own university, students can undertake global marketing studies. The entire planet is our market. Not just the Boston seafood show. Our trade schools can teach innovation in the kitchen. Help people with different tastes find ways to fall in love with the products we have to offer.

The French pulled off a spectacular comeback from the brink of disaster and are now world leaders in quality wine.

If we can find a way to set aside the differences that divide the fishery's different interest groups, we can cure the ills that afflict this industry. We have an enormous advantage to begin with, the top notch quality of the food we harvest from our seas, as good as any this planet has to offer.

Newfoundland and Labrador.
Appellation Terra Nova ControlÉe.

pickersgill@mac.com