Vin de France

Vin de France isn't a region at all — it's the broadest, least restrictive category in French wine law, sitting below every appellation and every regional Vin de Pays designation. No required grape, no required style, no required place of origin beyond "France."

Producers end up here for very different reasons. Some are making something too unconventional for their local appellation's rulebook to permit. Some are blending fruit from more than one region. Some are simply reviving vineyards in places — like Auvergne's volcanic hillsides — where the old appellation system barely exists anymore.

In this portfolio, it covers two producers with almost nothing else in common: Marc Soyard, farming a municipally owned vineyard on Dijon's edge, and Pierre Beauger, replanting abandoned volcanic vineyards in the Auvergne. Neither uses Vin de France because the wine is lesser — both use it because the appellation system was never built with their project in mind.