Historically, the world's first exclusive (protected) vineyard zone was introduced in Chianti, Italy in 1716 and the first wine classification system in Tokaj-Hegyalja, Hungary, in 1730.
In 1935, the Institut National des Appellations d'Origine (INAO), a branch of the French Ministry of Agriculture, was created to manage wine-processing in France.
In the Rhone wine region Baron Pierre Le Roy Boiseaumarié, a lawyer and winegrower from Châteauneuf-du-Pape, obtained legal recognition of the Côtes du Rhône appellation of origin in 1937.
This right was reaffirmed in the Treaty of Versailles after World War I. Germany is unusual among wine-producing countries in that its most prestigious classifications, the various grades of Prädikatswein, are based on the ripeness of the grapes, though their geographical origins are also legally defined.
Thus Germany's geographical classification, Qualitätswein bestimmter Anbaugebiete (QbA), is akin to France's defunct Vin Délimité de Qualité Superieure, which has been subsumed into the current Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée system.
The world's third-oldest appellation control, after Chianti and Tokaj, was introduced in Portugal in 1756, pertaining to port wine, which was produced in the region of the Douro valley.
It was not until 1980 that legislation on denominación de origen was stablished, following the French scheme with more tiers of classification and prompted by the impending accession to the European Union.