Winebits 500: Ingredient labels, Google SEO, great wine

This week’s wine news: Campbell’s Soup sends wine an ingredient label wakeup call, plus Google SEO foolishness and the mysteries of great wine

• Ingredient labels already: Consider this quote: “When people look for something real to eat and something that tastes good, they’re going to look for the food we make. We chose this path not because it’s expedient, but because we believe it represents the future of the food industry and that it will lead to differentiated performance.” No, it’s not from some tree-hugging hippie do-gooder. It’s from the CEO of the $8 billion Campell’s Soup, who said the company is changing the way it makes its food to focus on healthier products, more transparency for the consumer, and more sustainability in the manufacturing process. Can someone in the wine business explain why it still opposes ingredient labels – more transparency – when a company that makes a product with 37 percent of the federal RDA for sodium understands the need to change?

• No, not that kind of hipster: The Wine Curmudgeon regularly criticizes the tyranny of our overlords at Google, who control what we see on the Internet without any checks or balances. Still, even I had to laugh at this one: An email from a beard care website wanted me to link to a post about achieving the ultimate hipster beard. The reason? Because its search bots found a post I did a couple of years ago with the word hipster in the headline. I sent the guy a nice email explaining the mix-up, but it made me think: Maybe Google isn’t infallible after all.

• Sweet mysteries of wine: Those of us who love wine understand that great wine is as much art as science. This idea was reinforced by an article in the British wine magazine, Decanter, discussing the legendary 1983 Chateau Margaux. That the wine was so great in an otherwise ordinary vintage has remained a mystery for more than three decades, says the winery. Its “spectacular success… partly remains an enigma. which goes to show how limited our knowledge is about what makes a vintage successful.”