Tag Archives: wine ingredients

Ingredient labels are coming to wine in Europe

u-label
European wine drinkers will be able to scan a QSR code to find that a glass of wine has 125 calories. Which, apparently, is some sort of closely guarded wine industry secret in the U.S.

So what’s the excuse for U.S. producers now?

Wine drinkers in Europe are getting a chance to see what ingredients go into their wine. Which, of course, is something that U.S. producers have fought long and hard against, claiming it would be too confusing, too costly, and take up too much room on the bottle.

The project, called U-Label, will use QR codes on wine and spirits bottles – scan the code, and you’ll be taken to a website that lists ingredient and nutrition information for the product. The European Union plans to make ingredient labels on wine and spirits mandatory over the next several years. This voluntary program is the European wine and spirits business’ effort to get ahead of the EU and offer a template for the regulation.

Currently, federal law allows for voluntary labeling in the U.S., but only a handful of producers use it. Some wine labels, which make calorie or nutrition claims, are required to use nutrition labels.

My freelance piece for the Pix.wine site has the details. Among the highlights:

• Currently, there are no plans to require the U-Label on wine exported to the United States. But producers who want to include the label on wines sent to the U.S. can, and U.S. consumers who bring wine back from Europe will also have access to the QR code website.

• The U-Label will include calorie and other nutritional information, responsible drinking guidelines, a health warning with pictogram, and details on sustainability. Most EU countries have strict laws regulating what goes into their wine, but there are few ways for consumers who aren’t wine geeks to figure that out. The U-Label will solve that.

• The cost to participate is €250 (about US$290), making it affordable for almost any producer, regardless of size. Cost has been a key argument against labels in the U.S., on the theory that small producers would be harmed more than large ones.

More about wine ingredient labels:
• Beer drinkers — and Big Beer – love nutrition facts labels
• Leading wine experts call for ingredient and nutrition labels
• Clean wine: Has the Winestream Media finally figured out why we need nutrition and ingredient labels?

Leading wine experts call for ingredient and nutrition labels

nutrition labels
Remember when Bonny Doon took the lead in adding ingredient labels to wine? And we thought labels had a chance to spread?

Has the time finally come for ingredient and nutrition labels — given that people with initials after the name agree with the WC?

The past couple of weeks have been filled with demonic news stories about pandemic drinking and the imminent alcoholism of anyone who has ever had a glass of wine with dinner.

How about: “Soaring Pandemic Alcohol Sales Cause Concern For Doctors”!

Or, “America’s all or nothing attitude toward alcohol: Binge or be sober”

And, “As pandemic drinking surges. …”

So what’s the wine industry to do? Obviously, it hasn’t done much of a job reminding people that the U.S. is not anywhere near a collective drunken stupor. As noted here way too many times, there is little evidence we’re drinking more during the pandemic.

Dare the Wine Curmudgeon suggest – once again – ingredient and nutrition labels? And, this time, I’m not the only one who thinks so.

No less than the Institute of Masters of Wine recently held a webinar on the subject – and many people with initials after their name said ingredient and nutrition labels were a good idea.

And imagine my joy when Ines Salpico, writing in a British trade magazine, spared no punches: “Wine has been able keep itself at the margins of a basic consumer right: knowing the full list of ingredients and allergens present in a product. … [G]reater transparency needs to be seen as a key opportunity rather than a threat.”

Her argument makes perfect sense to everyone but the wine business:

• “Transparency will engage a generation of consumers that is data-driven, data-hungry and very skeptic about products without full traceability.” In other words, all those young people who don’t drink wine.

• Labels will make wine seem more like a food product and less like tobacco, a tactic that the neo-Prohibitionists have been using to great success.

• The lack of labels gives the impression that producers “might have something to hide,” and makes it possible for foolishness like clean wine and healthy wine.

So, once more, please: Can’t we offer ingredient and nutrition labels on wine?

Winebits 662: Ingredient labels, tennis wine, three-tier fraud

ingredient labels
Beer drinkers want to know what’s in their glass, but wine drinkers? Nope.

This week’s wine news: A wine industry survey finds that wine drinkers aren’t interested in ingredient labels, plus a wine celebration at the U.S. Open and two New Jersey distributors are fined $8 million for cheating customers

• They didn’t ask me: Most wine drinkers aren’t interested in knowing the ingredients in their wine, according to a survey by the Wine Market Council. The Wine Curmudgeon, of course, has long lobbied for ingredient and nutritional labels as a way to bring more people to wine, but I was not surprised by the results. The council’s bills are paid by the wine industry, which has opposed ingredient labels since the federal government first contemplated the idea more than a decade ago. The other thing to note: The survey didn’t include all consumers – just what the council calls “core” and “marginal” wine drinkers, and it was skewed in favor of core wine drinkers. I wonder: How different would the results have been if it had included all consumers, instead of those who already think they know what’s in their wine? I don’t write this lightly; I have tremendous respect for the Wine Market Council, and its staff has helped me with countless stories through the years. And this post probably means I will never get a phone call returned again. But it has to be said: This result has far less significance than if a Gallup poll of all consumers had found the same thing. Until then, I still believe consumers want to know if their wine contains industrial adhesives.

• Bring on the wine: Tennis player Madison Brengle celebrated her upset victory over the U.S. Open’s No. 19 seed last week by chugging a bottle of Sutter Home wine, the New York Post reported. Brengle ran into the stands to drink a 187 ml bottle of an unidentified Sutter Home red after her victory. No report on how many points she gave the wine or whether she was a core or marginal wine drinker. And Brengle didn’t get a chance to celebrate again – she lost in the next round in straight sets.

• $10.3 million fine: New Jersey’s two largest distributors were fined $4 million each for cheating many of the state’s liquor retailers, reports WRNJ. The legal charge was “discriminatory trade practice” – wholesalers Allied Beverage Group and Fedway Associates agreed to pay the record-high fines and promise to never to do it again after a two-year investigation by the state’s liquor cops. In addition, 20 retailers were fined $2.3 million for participating in the wholesalers’ scheme. The story in the link has the detailed charges; it’s enough to know  that Allied and Fedway worked with the 20 retailers, using illegal payments, to cheat smaller retailers. I wonder: If we need the three-tier system to protect us from corruption, who is going to protect us from corruption in the three-tier system?

The final “nutrition and ingredient labels for wine are a good thing” post

ingredient labelsOne more study shows consumers use ingredient labels and that it influences what we buy

The Wine Curmudgeon has long advocated nutrition and ingredient labels for wine, but the response has been silence punctuated by more than a few cat calls. So, rather than continue to elicit abuse, consider this the final post on the subject. I can’t make the point any more forcefully other than to report this story:

An analysis of studies that looked at how labeling on food packaging, point-of-sale materials and restaurant menus prompted consumers to eat fewer calories and fat; reduce their choice of other unhealthy food option; and eat more vegetables.

What more do we need to know about the efficacy of labels? How much better off would wine be if each bottle listed calories, fat, and the like? Wouldn’t consumers benefit to know that there are about half the calories in a glass of wine than in a jelly doughnut? Wouldn’t they feel better knowing their wine was mostly fermented grape juice instead of something like Dr Pepper – with its 250 calories, high fructose corn syrup, and four percent of the daily value of sodium?

The wine business disagrees, and just not because it doesn’t want consumers to know wine sometimes has a lot more in it than fermented grape juice. Instead, I will get emails and comments citing another part of the study: Consumers “also selected 13 percent fewer other unhealthy food options such as sugar-sweetened beverages, alcoholic beverages, non-alcoholic caloric beverages, french fries, potatoes, white bread, and foods high in saturated fat, trans fat, added sugars or sodium.”

My answer: Doesn’t wine need to do something drastic when it’s compared to french fries, white bread, and sugar-sweetened beverages? When consumers think your product is as nasty as french fries, you’ve got nothing else to lose.

So read this, and know the way the world is going. And know that the wine business is headed in a completely different direction.

More about nutrition and ingredient labels:

• Wine and GMO labeling
• Update: Nutrition labels and what the wine business doesn’t understand
• Nutrition labels for booze

Are we making progress in adding ingredient labels to wine?

ingredient labels
Why does rum have an nutrition facts label, but not wine?

Some small steps are being taken to let wine drinkers know what’s in their wine

The wine industry, terrified that we’ll balk at paying high prices for wine made with ingredients that aren’t grapes, has fought long and hard to prevent wine from carrying ingredient and nutritional labels. Even today, when almost everything else in the grocery store must have those labels, wine is exempt.

But there may progress in letting us know whether our wine is made with industrial adhesives:

• Vinepair reports that another small California winery, Donkey & Goat, has added ingredient labels to its wine. It joins a list that includes heavyweights Bonny Doon and Ridge, but which is still not nearly long enough.

• Two studies found that the best-selling categories over the past four years in the beleaguered grocery store business were fresh foods, more often meat and produce, that were “antibiotic free, no growth hormones and free of pesticides or fertilizers.” And how do we know this? Because those products say so on the label.

• The NPD Group, perhaps the leading food consultancy in the country, says about half of U.S. adults are trying eat less sugar and that we check ingredient labels for sugar more often than ever. And what is the leading wine style trend these days? Sweet red wine, which is made with added sugar. But no one knows, since there aren’t ingredient labels.

More about ingredient labels and wine:
• Nutritional labels for booze
• Wine falls further behind in nutrition and ingredient labels
• Wine, ingredient labels, and what’s next

Consumers want transparency in what they eat and drink, so why not wine?

Food marketing instituteThe Food Marketing Institute, which gets paid to help sell food, says consumers want to know what’s in what they eat and drink

Dear Wine Business:

We’ve had our disagreements over the years about ingredient and nutrition labels, which I think are crucial for wine’s success in the 21st century. You, on the other hand, don’t seem interested, claiming that it’s too much trouble to fit a label on a wine bottle or that listing ingredients would just confuse consumers.

Both are excuses, and not reasons. That’s because I’m not the only who feels this way. The Food Marketing Institute, whose job is to help food companies market their products, says everything you need to know — but don’t want to acknowledge — in its 2017 report:

U.S. grocery shoppers want more than just information; they desire transparency that engages them, offering assurances of food safety, the pursuit of health and wellness, the appetite for discovery and a closer connection to food.

Wine’s popularity is facing pressure from all over – the decline in Baby Boomer consumption, which brought us where we are today; the indifference of younger consumers, whose tastes run to cider, craft beer, and artisan spirits; the financial pressures facing Millennials, who may not be able to afford to buy wine the way their parents and grandparents did; legal pot; and the neo-Prohibitionists, who insist that drinking is as deadly as smoking cigarettes.

Ingredient and nutrition labels would go a long way toward addressing those concerns, as well as to meet the challenges in the Food Marketing Institute’s report. Not adding labels makes it look like wine has something to hide, which the cynical among us think is what’s really going on. Answer me this: If the additives are legal, be they Mega Purple, a grape juice concentrate used to make wine darker, or food grade gelatin, used to clarify wine, what’s the problem with listing them? Or calories? Or whether wood chips or oak barrels were used?

We both want the same thing – a healthy and thriving wine business that helps Americans enjoy wine. Your approach is short-sighted and ignores the long-term, which is what I’m worried about. Who wants to write a wine blog about the joys of wine when fewer and fewer of us are drinking it?

Your pal,
The Wine Curmudgeon

Winebits 457: International style, binge drinking, ingredient labeling

international styleThis week’s wine news: The Italian Wine Guy makes sense about the International wine style, while kids drink too much and consumers want to know what’s in their wine

• Here to stay: Those of us who appreciate terroir and that wine should taste like where it comes from don’t much care for the International style of winemaking, where the goal is to make every wine taste like came from Paso Robles. Yet there is more to the international style, writes Alfonso Cevola, the Italian Wine Guy. For all of its excesses, and Cevola has seen all of them, the international style means accessible wines that are clean and made without flaws, something that European producers have struggled with for centuries. We’re spoiled in the second decade of the 21st century, when technically correct wine is the rule. But it wasn’t that long ago – in my early drinking days – when it wasn’t unusual to buy a bottle of wine that had soured, turned, or was made so badly you didn’t want to drink it.

• Kids will be kids: The “typical” British 25-year-old regularly experiences a blackout after drinking, according to a survey. The research found the respondents have blacked out five times after drinking alcohol since turning 18, with 17 per cent experiencing a blackout 10 times or more. And one than one-half of the 1,000 18- to 25-year-olds surveyed said they would probably do the same thing within a month. Sound hard to believe? Perhaps, and I’m a little wary of any survey commissioned by a TV network, as this was. Still, it jibes with what I’ve been told by several experts, who say the British have some serious social problems related to drinking.

• Transparency: Just in time to reinforce last week’s post about nutrition and fact labels (and thanks for all the nasty emails), comes this from Nielsen: “Three-quarters of global respondents strongly or somewhat agree that they’re concerned about the long-term health impact of artificial ingredients. … In addition, 69% strongly or somewhat agree that foods without artificial ingredients are always more healthful, and just over half (52%) strongly or somewhat agree that foods and beverages with fewer ingredients are more healthful, with agreement even stronger in North America (61%).” But whatever you do, wine business, don’t tell consumers what’s in their wine. What do consumers know, anyway?