How to read a french wine capsule

You probably see it, if you buy a bottle of French wine, you may have a colored capsule on the top of the bottle. You can see on it the French Republic symbol, Mariane, and the official name of France, “République Française”. There is some other cryptic information, you can find a letter or a word and several numbers and color codes. You have to know, that a capsule ascertains, that the winemaker paid taxes on alcohol and allows the bottle to be sent and sold anywhere in France. Since the 1st of June 2019, the capsule is not mandatory anymore, it can be replaced by a document. But many winemakers still use it.

What can you learn from this piece of information for the bottle of wine you want.

When you have a capsule in a bottle of wine, the most obvious deduction you can have; the wine was made in France or at least put in a bottle in France. The color of the capsule is also important, for the wine, there are four different colors. Green, the wine is part of the controlled appellation AOC, “Appelation d’origigne controlée”. Blue, wine with other types of appellations, like “Vin de France”. Red, “lie de vin”, this time is more complex, this color can replace the green and the blue except for sparkling wine and sweet wine when they come from an AOC. Orange, for sweet wine (Banyuls) and liquor wine (Macvin du Jura)

The letter indicates who produced the wine and how. You can find the letters R or Récoltant. The winemaker harvested the grapes, and produced and bottled the wine.

For the letter N for “Négociant”, the winemaker, part or the totality of the wine was bought by the wine.

E for “Entropositaire Agréé”, the winemaker bought wine or grappes.

For N and E, it doesn’t belong to nefarious wines with no quality. A winemaker could get fine quality wine or grape to create an excelente cuvée.

You will find also the department of the company headquarters, on the left of the letter. Most of the time it’s the same as the vineyard, but in some cases is not. The number on the right is the registration number of the company.

With this information, it’s possible to understand how to decrypt a capsule. But, remember, it’s only for French wines and it’s not an obligation anymore. With it, you can quickly have more information than you could find on the label.