New rules established last year allow US wine producers to put labels on their bottles that detail calories and serving size, as well as the amount of carbohydrates, fat, and protein. Some wineries are taking advantage of this to use what are called Serving Facts labels – similar to a label on light beer or a can of soup.
Label fight
The wine industry, including the largest trade groups like WineAmerica, with 600 members, and the Wine Institute, with more than 1,000 winery members, fought desperately to prevent mandatory ingredient labeling for a decade, and the proposal received thousands of negative comments. “I don’t think you can underestimate the cost of the labelling for small wineries and the burden it would impose,” says Michael Kaiser, a spokesman for WineAmerica. “The label aesthetic is also very important, and we don’t want that taken away, which including serving facts would do.”
Others, though, aren’t so sure. David Bernkopf, principal of Atlanta’s SplendidVid, a crisis communications agency, says that consumers are more aware than ever of what goes in the products they eat and drink. “The business fall-back position on these kinds of labeling and information proposals is almost always that more information on a label or in a store or on the side of a restaurant wall will confuse consumers and cost too much money. Then, when they eventually must do it, consumers aren’t confused and the cost over time is negligible.”
This is just the latest in a saga that dates to the early 2000s, when the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), which oversees alcohol regulation for the US Treasury, requested comments on a proposal to require a nutrition label for alcoholic products. This was part of a trend toward increased ingredient transparency and was supported by several prominent consumer groups, including the National Consumers League and the Center for Science in the Public Interest. After all, there are 60-some ingredients legally allowed in wine, including oak chips and sulfites, plus 60-some approved winemaking materials, from acacia to isinglass and polyvinyl-polypyrrolidone (also used in computer printer ink).
Yet the proposal went nowhere, held hostage by an indifferent Bush administration preoccupied with the Iraq war and an Obama administration focused on the recession. Most importantly, the wine industry objected more strenuously than anticipated. It cited label clutter and the cost, especially to small wineries that might have to spend thousands of dollars to have nutritional testing done. Also, they argued it would give a competitive advantage to imported wines. Would the TTB, facing budget cuts and other priorities, have the resources to vet wine made overseas as easily as it could for US wineries?
In addition, the wine, beer and spirits industries baulked at calorie labelling and how to define serving size. What was the proper serving size, not only for wine (five ounces? four?), but also for beer and spirits? Most beer is about 5% alcohol, but craft beers can be twice that, and those producers didn’t want a label that said a bottle of their product contained two servings of beer compared to one serving of mass-market beer.
There was also the sense, says David Falchek, director of membership services for the American Wine Society, that consumers weren’t all that interested. “I don’t see a hue and cry from the public,” he says. “People recognise that wine is different than typical food products. Wine is not a cake. All added ingredients do not end up in the final product. Wine also develops components all by itself, alcohol being only the most popular. For all the chest thumping about truth and full disclosure, the fact is that any wine ingredient labeling will be inherently inaccurate and mislead a public unaware of the nuances of food labeling.”
And, says Kaiser, “In the TTB’s mind, the issue is settled. It has been going on for at least seven years, and the way things are at the TTB, they have more important issues to deal with.” Others aren’t so sure. “We think the companies that have signed on to provide voluntary ingredient labeling have taken a great first step in transparency in the industry,” says Kevin Hicks, CEO of BeverageGrades, which provides health and nutritional information for alcoholic beverages. “We are a data-driven society and consumers are looking for easily digestible information around all aspects of our lives. With the rise in trends like farm-to-table, organic and gluten-free, all signs are signaling an increasing need for nutritional and product information.”
Which leaves the situation where it is now, with several respected wineries, including Randall Grahm’s Bonny Doon and Paul Draper’s Ridge, providing serving facts and ingredients, including whether they used oak barrels, staves or chips. But they seem to be the exception. A spokeswoman for the Wine Institute said her group didn’t know of any producers who plan to use the new labels.
However, many of the biggest wine companies welcomed the ruling. Diageo’s executive vice president Guy Smith called it a victory for the American public, and said his company would gradually add the voluntary labels to its wines, which include Chalone, Dom Pérignon, and Moët & Chandon.
