Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Bonny Doon Is Labled

As of 2008, Bonny Doon Vineyard labels will disclose all wine ingredients beginning with the 2007 vintage white and 2006 vintage red wines. The new labels will note that all ingredients of the wine in two sections of the back label of each bottle. The first section highlights the wine’s basic ingredients, i.e. grapes and sulfur dioxide, a preservative, found in the wine. The second section will point out ingredients used in the production of the wine such as bentonite, (a type of clay used to clarify wine prior to bottling) even though they are essentially no longer remain in the wine.

“We feel it useful to provide the consumer with more detailed information about the ingredients used in wine production and aim to reduce our own dependence on standard wine additions, even those considered to be utterly benign – viz. tartaric acid, bentonite, yeast nutrients, enzymes, sulfur dioxide, and so on,” said Randall Grahm, owner and winemaker of the Santa Cruz vineyard. “Lest it appear that we are revoltingly self-righteous,” added Grahm, “one should bear in mind that we are ourselves still somewhat reliant on certain wine additions that in a perfect world we would minimize or not use at all. But, whatever has been added in production or to the finished wine, even in the minutest fraction, will appear on our labels.”

This is the beginning of a labeling trend that I suspect will become more widespread across the US industry in the next few years. It may also lead to a federal labeling law giving all vineyards the specs on how to properly label wines just as we see on nearly every other consumable product in the local supermarket.

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