At the end of our Mid-Term Presentation, we were asked a question about the wine we had brought for everyone to taste. Specifically, we offered the class a taste of chardonnay made with grapes from the Columbia Valley in Washington; however, the wine was made and bottled in California. The question was around why that phenomenon exists and what does it really mean about the winemaking process?
This resource from the Napa Valley Vintners (https://napavintners.com/wines/how_to_read_a_wine_label.asp) explains what the labeling on a bottle really means. In our case, it's important to call out a few observations that stem from both federal and state regulations. While the grapes in the bottle we offered did in fact originate from a Washington State AVA, the winemaker, under federal law, could not label the bottle as a product of said AVA. Why not? Regulations state that in order to label a wine as having originated from a particular AVA, 85% of the grapes have to have originated from said AVA and the wine must be fully finished in that particular state. In the case of the bottle we bought, the wine wasn't fully finished when it left Washington State, thus it couldn't be labeled as a Columbia Valley AVA, despite the fact that its grapes originated there.
In our case, the wine also stated that the wine was "made and bottled by". Under law, this means that the California bottler fermented at least 75% of the grapes in the wine at the California address on the bottle even though the grapes were from Washington State.
Our example was one of a litany of other complex labeling cases that stem from both state and federal regulations. Check out the resource above from NVV for an in-depth read.
I thought you tasked this out to someone else? Good initiative.
ReplyDeleteFrom my novice understanding of wine production, my inclination would be that what should matter more to a consumer wondering about their wine, and therefore reading the label, should be where the grapes were grown not where they were fermented as my guess would be that effects the taste of the wine more ultimately (as well as gives more info on the actual contents of the bottle). As somebody who doesn't have a lot of faith in state and federal regulation on much of anything, I'm wondering if they're missing the point in their labeling and giving the consumer info they're not actually looking for. On the flip side-- it's very likely that in this case I'm the one missing the point. Any insight, anybody?
ReplyDelete