Résumé
Starting January 1, 2016, wine planting rights have disappeared. They were present in France for more than 60 years and have been replaced by the planting authorizations. The European Commission was in charge of this decision that was inducted into the wine CMOs of 2008 and 2013. One of the major arguments for cancelling the planting rights was closely related to land. It stated that the planting rights stopped grape growers from getting access to extra and unused land that could be used to grow their farms in size. This growth would enable them to benefit from economies of scale. This argument has since been proven fallacious. However the relationship between planting rights and land have struck our curiosity. Of course there are problems when it comes to land access in the wine economy, but are they linked to the planting rights/authorizations? This paper explores other factors that could have an important role in the access to vineyards’ land, specifically the French agricultural land policy that exists since 1946. Our idea is to go over key concepts of the French land policy.