WineLovers Discussion Group

Asimov comes out w/ a ringing endorsement of (voluntary) ingredient labeling for wine:
NYTimes:IngredientLabeling

Of course, our RandallGrahm takes center stage in this article.

One statement that caught my eye: "It's no surprise that virtually all wineries are reluctant to document what goes into their wines". and ....."most would prefer that nobody ever knows".
I think that's a huge overstatement. I think most wineries are more than willing to share that information...they just don't feel it's worth cluttering up their labels with that information.
Tom

Its odd but that type of info on a label would not interest me as a consumer these days. Before I started making my own wine, I would probably have had a different idea about some of the things that would be listed. Now that I understand more about what can go into a wine and what they do, it really concerns me less as a consumer. I would like to see total disclosure from a geek persepective to understand what wineries that I respect are doing and are not doing. That is why I like the Ridge summaries so much.

I think many wineries have a legitimate fear of transparency, only because of the negative press that fining, acidification, etc gets.

There's some odd labelling in the photo of a bottle in Asimov's article (presumably it's a Bonny Doon bottle). For example, the label lists "tartaric acid" as an ingredient - but it's an ingredient of any grape wine! I guess the intent is to list tartaric acid as a separately added ingredient (i.e., not sourced from the grapes themselves), but then yeast nutrient might also be listed there (though the assumption there might be that all the added nutrient was utilised by yeast/bacteria) and listing "indigenous yeast" as being utilised is a little bizarre (as they are not an added ingredient; and what about bacteria - whether they were inoculated for MLF or not?).

Brian Gilp wrote:Its odd but that type of info on a label would not interest me as a consumer these days. Before I started making my own wine, I would probably have had a different idea about some of the things that would be listed. Now that I understand more about what can go into a wine and what they do, it really concerns me less as a consumer.

It's the opposite for me: I'm interested in what other winemakers are doing.

In regards to labeling “wine ingredients” I more or less agree with Ben. Technically to be truly honest and give “full or total disclosure” you would have to list several “sets” of possible ingredients. (Juice or must ingredients; added ingredients pre fermentation; ingredients post fermentation; added ingredients post fermentation; ingredients at bottling; added ingredients at bottling; and possible ingredients created during “bottle aging” (this one could be possible varied, and almost impossible to list).

Salute