AOC
France's controlled designation of origin, first given to a cheese, Roquefort, in 1925.
Also: appellation d'origine contrôlée
Appellation d'origine contrôlée is the French system that ties a product's name to a place and to a set of rules on how it is made. Roquefort was the first cheese protected under French law in 1925, and the label grew into a national scheme run by the INAO. An AOC cheese must come from a defined area and follow a written specification covering the breed or species of animal, its feed, the treatment of the milk, the making and the minimum age. Since the European Union created its own scheme in 1992, French cheeses are registered as AOP, the French form of PDO, and the national AOC label has largely given way to it on packs.