THE ALCOHOL & TOBACCO TAX & TRADE BUREAU PROPOSES A REVOLUTIONARY WINE BOTTLE LABEL INDICATING ALLERGENS AND NUTRITIONAL VALUE, LEAVING LITTLE SPACE FOR DENOMINATION AND VINEYARD

When the U.S. medias give “voice” to rumors, it’s generally because there is at least some truth in them. The latest rumor is the proposal of the “notorious” Alcohol & Tobacco Tax & Trade Bureau to revolutionize the labels of all alcoholic beverages, wine included, of course. How? First of all, by making it compulsory to indicate the possible allergens and the nutritional value of the bottle’s contents (this data, however, changes from bottle to bottle), which will inevitably leave little room to indicate the vintage, producer and vineyard. The choice is meant to fight obesity and will involve, not without its share of issues, all producing countries, since the U.S. market is still fundamental, especially for Italy. “At the moment it is still a hypothesis,” says Wendell Lee, lawyer for the Wine Institute, the California wine producers union. “The idea was launched to see how people would react. Making it obligatory to indicate calories, quantities of carbohydrates and proteins is still in the working stage”.
The Wine Institute and the big wine companies like Diageo are convinced that putting more details on the labels will weaken the States in its negotiations with the European Union, which uses its territorial peculiarities very competitively. “Our administration must be very careful because developing new label laws right when Europe is trying to protect its territorial denominations could be very risky,” say the California producers.