Intervins

In response to the 2009 Common Market Organisation for Wine and the plan for modernising the wine-growing sector, producers and wine merchants from the French departments of Bouches-du-Rhône, Vaucluse, Drôme, Ardèche, Rhône and Loire created wine board council for PGI wines (IGP – Indication Géographique Protégée/Protected Geographical Indication, formerly Vins de Pays), known as InterVins Sud Est.

A SIMPLE, TWOFOLD PURPOSE

• To help consumers understand that Vin de Pays wines are now known as IGP wines, a token of the quality of our products and their positioning as pleasurable, accessible and unpretentious.
• To help build an attractive IGP wine segment for businesses in the sector.

To this end, InterVins Sud-Est is introducing services and systems to improve the sector organisation and boost its overall offering.
1 — Inform decisions

by setting up an economic observatory to provide the sector with reliable information.
The economic observatory is already managing and monitoring the IGP wine offering, in partnership with others wine board councils such as Inter Rhône and Conseil Interprofessionnel des Vins de Provence.
Economic data is collected via a common platform: DeclarVins.

2 — Maintain consumer confidence in the quality of our wines through downstream quality control

Each year, an independent company acquires samples of IGP wines produced by InterVins members, from a range of retailers in various regions of France. The wines are then tasted blind by a panel of wine-merchants, wholesalers and producers who decide whether they meet the expected standard for the IGP in question. The companies concerned are given the results in the strictest confidence.
Should the wine disappoint in any way, the company is responsible for taking all necessary steps to make their wine worthy of its quality label again.

3 — Support the IGP wine sector

In south-east of France, our IGP category accounts for 25% of production in the region and plays a key role in creating turnover and adding value in the sector, in terms of both production and sales.
Downstream communication and promotional campaigns are becoming increasingly important as the IGP wine share continues to grow. Specialist retailers like supermarkets and hypermarkets are very much open to arguments in favour of IGP wines, both because of their “territorial” origins and because the wines’ adaptability gives them an opportunity to explore new market segments.
The IGP category offers stronger, more reassuring features than the Vin de Pays regulations. But we have to be able to make the most of them in a market that is becoming increasingly complex and open, where creating value requires ambition, ideas and a measure of pugnacity.

4 — Increase brand awareness

by conducting campaigns to raise the profile of IGP wines. Ensure that this high profile is shared with everyone in the IGP sector and promote the IGP wine segment as one that combines quality with pleasure and simplicity.