Duration for white wines

Provence/Loire - 1/2 - 3 years
Alsace/Champagne/Bordeaux(no sweet) - 1- 5 years
Chablis/Bourgogne - 1 - 10 years
Bordeaux - 5 - 20 years

How long does your bottle of wine last before you need to start drinking? (Red Wine)

Beaujolais Nouveau - 1/2 - 1 year
Crus du Beaujolais - 1 - 3 years
Rhone - 1 - 5 years
Cote de beaune - 1 - 8 years
Cote de Nuits - 2 - 10 years
Bordeax - 3 - 20 years
Bordeaux Superieur AC - 20 years or more

Wine vintage

For Red Wine, it is recommended to drink them within 10 years after it was produced. Furthermore, some wines like from Bordeaux, the year the wine was produced is not much significant after 1990.

Types of wines

1. AOC (Appellation d'Origine Controlee) - highest quality level for wine
2. AOVDQS (Appellation d'Origine Vins Delimite de Qualite Superieure) - second highest quality level after AOC
3. Vins de Pays - Typical wine.
4. Wins de Table - amalgamated with different types of grapes from different dates.  The lowest level for wine

The last two types are considered typical wines that people drink daily.  Not sure if all French people prefer drinking table wine daily during meal and take out AOC wines for special events, but in my opinion table wines are easier to drink.  Some table wines I tried were not as bad as the ones that labeled AOC.  Nevertheless, this is a good starter to identify the various types of French wines.

Some terms on the label

Domaine vs Negociant.  Negociant is usually telling you that the bottle of wine is from a retail or a commercial supplier.  Domaine is telling you that the bottle of wine is from a vineyard.