Bordeaux label mystery
When I read the recent Wall Street Journal story on varietal labeling for the wines of Bordeaux, I was surprised. The story revealed that some producers of appellation wines are stating grape varieties on the label, such as Merlot 45 percent, Cabernet Sauvignon 55 percent. Several people wrote me that day pointing out the story and asking how the producers were able to do it. The story itself provided one explanation:
Producers of Bordeaux AOC wine also traditionally followed strict French wine rules forbidding them from disclosing varietals on labels. The rules, which were a part of French law, were that only wines that happened to be 100% merlot or 100% sauvignon blanc could specify their grapes on the front. Most Bordeaux wines are blends. Created in 1935, France’s AOC system also guarantees that when consumers buy a Bordeaux, the grapes came from the Bordeaux region and were treated in a specific way.
Concluding that the existing French rules were too restrictive, some producers are choosing to follow far more lenient standards set forth in 1999 and 2002 by the European Economic Community, a predecessor of the European Union. EEC rules not only allow appellation blends to disclose varietals on front labels, but also allow wines to characterize themselves as say, cabernet, as long as a mere 85% of the wine was made from that grape, according to Le Conseil Interprofessionnel du vin de Bordeaux in France, a group of Bordeaux producers.
But yesterday I spoke with two producers of appellation wine in Bordeaux who use the varietal labeling. How did they do it? Nothing as complicated as the EU: they simply called it the back label.
Thus they had a consumer friendly “back label” that stated the grape varieties on the front of the bottle. Brilliant! But what about the US “government warning” that is supposed to go on the back label? That goes on the back label, which is actually the front according to the French authorities. Talk about spinning the bottle…
(I will try to get label images soon in case this was too difficult to follow)
tags: wine | wine law | wine labels
