Appellation or a system of appellations is a means by which a country maintains the integrity of the terroir of its regions of production, as in France.  Appellation literally names both the product with its origin and gives a designation to the origin’s locality and in designating these locations, assigns them certain regulations informed by the region or area’s terroir.   Thus, for the production of wine, for example, the appellation classifies the different growing areas that produce wine, stipulating by law the types of grapes that can be grown in the appellation, the percentage of particular grapes that may be used in a given wine such that the wine may bear a specific name, the vines which may be grown in the appellation (depending on how specific the appellation such as a particular vineyard), the degree of ripeness at harvest, percentage of alcohol per volume per bottle, the amount to which the vines are allowed to produce, in other words, the pruning of the grapes, and many other aspects of production down to the details of wine making process itself.

The more specific the appellation, the more specific the requirements are for content and productions of the wine.  A wine grape growing region may have many vineyards and an appellation may be specific to a region, then area, a particular valley or city, and a particular chateaux or vineyard within a locality.

Some countries have more restrictive appellation systems than others.  France, having the most stringent system among wine producing countries manages its system of appellations through the government entity, the Institut national de l’origine et de la qualité, a division of French Department of Agriculture.