Looking under the hood
posted by philip in Wine
Wine is always portrayed as a romantic, mystical product: images of farmers with gnarled hands tending to their vines on weathered slopes in the early morning mist and the like. It’s seen as the ultimate expression of “terroir” (a fancy French term for “dirt” meaning that the wine represents the area which it is from). New Federal regulations may change this by requiring wine makers to detail every ingredient used to make that wine - today, though, this includes a lot more than grapes and patience!
Under the FDA every food in the US needs to disclose ingredients, calorie content and fats etc. but wine has always been given a free pass as its actually controlled by a division of the treasury department. However, a 2004 congressional mandate requiring allergen disclosure specifically references alcoholic beverages, so it seems the free ride is over.
The problem is some pretty weird stuff is used in the process of making wine - much of it is later removed, but traces may remain - chicken, egg whites, Mega Purple, oxygen, copper etc. Do people actually want to know this?
I’m all for greater disclosure and transparency, and its true that many better wines rely on some of these additives less. So it seems right that wine drinkers should be informed. But the list of chemicals used during fermentation is long and not all of these are relevant. Take oxygen for example. Do people care that oxygen was bubbled through the wine to help it age better? Wine isn’t made in a vacuum, so oxygen is always present. Whats the difference between oxygen and more oxygen?
My take is that chemicals that are added to the wine and left there (Mega Purple is a coloring for example), should be disclosed, but that items that are used to aid the wine production process and then removed later needn’t be (egg whites are used to ‘fine’ the wine which removes impurities, the egg whites are then themselves removed).
Of course, if the egg white was fully removed there would be no need to disclose. But as its too expensive to prove that there are zero molecules of the stuff left wineries will be forced to publish it on the bottle.
The LA Times has more on the subject here.
What do you, Snooth readers, think?
Can’t trace amounts of certain items, like eggs, trigger allergic reactions for people who have severe allergies? Being a victim of red fruit allergies, but also a regular wine drinker, I haven’t encountered too many situations where my allergies were triggered by the wine, however, there was one instance where I drank a Cote Du Rhone that made me look like I used a lip plumper!
I agree that additives such as coloring or flavoring should be disclosed (I’d like to know if a wine is enhanced by artificial coloring!). I’ve seen some food labels that say the food was processed in a plant that also handles peanuts, so I would suggest something that allows general disclosure of the food types that came in contact, like egg products, nuts or animal fats, without requiring too much gory detail. New wineries might even benefit from offering wines that do NOT use specific fining substances.