“Gli ingredienti del vino”, dall’etichetta all’e-book: “inform to kill the diffidences”

When the news arrived, for its reach, was a small earthquake for wine world, even if echos have not turned off completely. Since 2023, Eu Regulation 2117/2021 imposes the list of ingredients on the label, an innovation that will take shape with wines produced by harvest 2024. And, if a “I” will be sufficient to indicate the ingredients with Qr Code, and not the translation in all the languages of the words “ingredients” - an eventuality which made discuss, but also “shake” the sector – the interrogative about how consumers will react to the reading of what there is inside wine remains, and, therefore, of the warning of an eventual presence of allergens (such as sulfites), and of nutritional declaration, but not only. Obviously little known technical terms and words that can disorient who purchases a bottle of wine, in a period, among other things, delicate for consumption. A tool which wants to be a “compass” to orient on what one puts in the wine glass arrives to clarify. It is called “Gli ingredienti del vino” (“The ingredients of wine”), a ebook (Edizioni Oicce, available on the dedicated website), whose authors are Alberto Cugnetto, enologist and wine expert, full professor of the Academy of Agriculture of Turin, associate Ugivi, and member of innovation group Oicce ( Organizzazione interprofessionale per la comunicazione delle conoscenze in enologia, ed), Pierstefano Berta, graduate in Pure Chemistry, and enologist, expert of technological, cultural, and regulatory aspects of winemaking, and among the founders of Oicce, and Simone Giacosa, enologist, associate professor in Enology at the University of Turin, and author of many research papers. “Gli ingredienti del vino” (“The ingredients of wine”), which takes advantage also of the contribution of other experts, was presented, in the last days, at Slow Wine Fair 2025, at BolognaFiere, at the presence of Alberto Cugnetto and Simone Giacosa, in a meeting moderated by Stefano Sequino, director Consorzio dei Vini Doc delle Venezie, and with a speech moderated by Elisabetta Romeo-Vareille, Senior policy officer Unione Italiana Vini (Uiv) about the importance of Codex Alimentarius, a reference for food safety and international trade also of wine, a tool which is a collection of rules, codes of good practices, guidelines, and other recommendations adopted by the Commission of Codex Alimentarius. A Commission which was created in 1963 by Fao and Who to develop a joint program of normalization to favor a uniform discipline in different countries for the production and trade of food products. Going back to “Gli ingredienti del vino” (“Ingredients of wine”), as Cugnetto explained, the idea “was thought for wine communicators” and arose by the conference of Oicce, hold in May 2023, at the University of Asti Studi Superiori”. Ingredients of wine having some names that can result to be “difficult” to those people who don’t know this world, and make diffident who reads them without adequate information. As it was explained during the conference at Slow Wine Fair, additives are not perceived all in the same way, and consumers are more likely to accept than refusing most ingredients, but those with “chemical” names find more barriers. Justify the role of an ingredient promotes an increase of its acceptation so that its transparency linked to visualized information with a list of ingredients tends to reassure the consumer. But, if the list is longer, the quality of wine perceived by the consumer is minor. There is little information by wine drinkers about vinification, and the composition of this product, but less than a consumer out of five has very negative perceptions about the use of additives.

As Giusi Mainardi, director of series “Oenologica Acta” - Edizioni Oicce explains in the preface, “interesting research papers show that the declaration of the presence of ingredients on wine labels raises different answers in consumers basing on their level of knowledge, type, and name of indicated ingredient. What effects will lysozyme, fumaric acid, potassium polyaspartate, and yeast mannoproteins have? Are they bad? Are they used to upset the “natural” characteristics of wine?” Data sheets in “Gli ingredienti del vino” intend to clarify and solve doubts throughout a subdivision of wine ingredients into implementation categories, and with origin indication, composition, implementation methods, reasons of implementation in wine making, and also in other food sectors, legal references. But, in the meantime, sustainability is an approach which is increasingly closer to the environment, and with increasingly less sulfites, it is a precise choice of many producers: “in the last 20-25 years, knowledge brought to produce with increasingly more limited quantities – explained Simone Giacosa – arrive to zero quota? It is very difficult because sulfites are produces by yeasts”. The yeasts present in wine remain, however, well below the limits of law: an other aspect that consumers have to know.