Archive for the ‘wine’ Category
Ingredient Labeling on Wine
Back in the 1970s ATF/TTB worked vigorously to control wine-labeling, where FDA wanted to get involved and insist upon detailed ingredient lists, as is common on most other food labels. The matter got resolved by way of Brown-Forman Distillers Corp. v. Mathews, 435 F. Supp. 5 (W.D. Ky. 1976).
But this did not stop Bonny Doon Winery. Many of Bonny Doon’s labels include quite detailed ingredient labeling, and Bonny Doon has been one of few alcohol beverage companies willing to swim against the tide and volunteer this information. Bonny Doon’s Cunning label shows the following ingredients: grapes, tartaric acid and sulfur dioxide. It goes on to say the product was made with cultured yeast, yeast nutrients, French oak chips, and French oak barrels.
According to Decanter, Bonny Doon president Randall Grahm said:
It’s useful to provide more detailed information about the ingredients used in wine production and reduce our dependence on standard wine additions, even those considered to be benign such as tartaric acid, bentonite, yeast nutrients, enzymes, sulphur dioxide.
Let us know if you see other TTB labels with detailed ingredient labeling.
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Keg Wine
It’s a good thing TTB never got far with the proposal to ban non-traditional containers. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have beer in boxes, spirits in a skull, nor the wine in steel kegs above.
From the looks of this approval, Jordan Kivelstadt plans to pack high-end wines in 20 liter refillable kegs. His website says:
Free Flow Wines is the first wine company dedicated to producing draught wines. We produce premium wines and “bottle” them in sustainable, stainless steel kegs, for restaurants, bars, and catering companies.
Apart from Free Flow and JK Cellars, Jordan is the winemaker at Pavo Wines. The Pavo site explains that in a few short years since graduating with an engineering degree, Jordan has worked at wineries in Sonoma, Australia and Argentina.
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Protest Wine
Tensley Wine is not happy with the way things are going in Washington. They claim it took more than a year to get approval on the wine label above. It is no wonder, and it is some credit that our government would approve it at all. Then again, it’s not entirely clear that the label is “approved.” Box 18c shows that it is an exemption from label approval, rather than a box 18a label approval. Either way, I am pretty sure President Obama (among others in Washington) has a thick skin and can deal with it.
It is clear that Tensley is annoyed, but it’s less clear what Tensley is annoyed about. There is some griping about the local bureaucracy, and a lot of griping that federal taxes are too high for some people and too low for others.
The front label notes that the wine has 1% more alcohol than table wine, but is taxed at a rate 235% higher.
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Temperance Like Chastity
I felt sure this statement was famous and handed down from the ages. But even the mighty Google has not been able to locate the origin of this statement. The Peasant is 15.3% red wine produced by Four Vines Winery of Paso Robles, California. The label says: “Temperance, like chastity, is its own punishment.” Temperance and chastity are two of the seven virtues. For each of the virtues, there is a corresponding sin, totaling “seven deadly sins.” In the case of this label, temperance opposes gluttony and chastity opposes lust.
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Vice
Here is a “delightfully chilling blend of Canadian icewine and vodka ~ VICE.” It is produced by Vineland Estates Winery, in Ontario, “one of Canada’s oldest and most renowned wineries.” The Vice website tends to suggest that Vineland would have liked to present this as a “martini,” but TTB can be protective of this term, and so it looks like Vineland settled for the term “cocktail” instead.
Speaking of vice, perhaps it’s time to sort out whether we are in the “vice” business or not. The Online Etymology Dictionary defines “vice” as “moral fault, wickedness.” The term dates back at least 700 years, to about 1300, from French. I can think of many things more wicked and fault-worthy than a 45 proof wine concoction, taxed and regulated out the wazoo. If this is vice, what is virtue? Here is a lawyer who scrupulously gravitates toward vice matters in his practice.
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