Winemakers in France's Bordeaux region have been banned from using a label designation that gives them the right to charge more.
A court ruled that houses using the coveted "grand crus” or "great growth" label must stop because the classification jury showed "partiality" by visiting only seven of the 95 candidate vineyards that produce Saint Emilion wines, a correspondent for The Telegraph reported from Paris.
"It's going to perturb sales for sure," said Jacques Gautier, head of the Bordeaux section of the National Institute of Appellation d'Origine, which oversees the classification process.
Saint Emilions grands crus are rejudged every 10 years by a jury of brokers, merchants, oenologists and a wine professor, and earlier this year a new list of top wines for 2006 through 2016 was released and the number of grand crus shrank from 68 to 61.
The designation does not necessarily indicate how good a wine is, but rather the potential the vineyard has, based on such factors as climate and soil.

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