Things to Ignore on a Wine Label

There can be a lot of info on a wine's label. Some has to be there, some is marketing related. There's nothing wrong with a winery touting their product. You just have to be able to separate the facts from the selling. Looking at American wine labels, here are things you may want to just ignore when shopping for a bottle or two.

This is a follow-up to the previous post on Wine Label Red Flags.

 
Information that has to be on a wine label 

This is quite the back label!
click on image to enlarge

Vintage year

This isn't something you'll always want to ignore, but it's usually not a determining factor for California wines. For those that might buy northern European wines especially, note that there isn't the year-to-year weather variance on the West Coast like there is in much of Europe and some other places in the world.

Sulfur warning

Oh yeah, the infamous government warning on sulfur in wine. There is a tiny percentage of people who may have respiratory issues from sulfur. The problem is with people getting a headache or some other symptom want to blame it on sulfur. Any issues related to wine are usually a hangover, dehydration, or a histamine reaction to compounds in wine. Alcohol causes dehydration; tannins can cause a reaction in some (tannins are also found in tea and other foods).

Information that may or may not be on a wine label

Special wines

Words like Reserve, Winemaker's Selection, Special Cuvee, etc. This is trying to imply a special wine. Is it? Well, there's no U.S. government regulations for using these terms. The original concept for this was a winery might make a Cabernet and sell it for $25 as their regular bottling. They held back some barrels they thought to be superior, usually meaning they thought they would age longer, and bottle this as a $40 reserve Cab. The first thing to realize is just because it's the reserve doesn't mean you'll like it better. Second, none of these terms prove anything except probably a higher price. The wines might be worth it to you, they might not. 

Stories

On the back label, you might find stories like, "A third generation farming family" or "The winemaker says ...". This is marketing hype. Yeah, it's great to buy from a family grower and producers vs. a corporation. Problem is I've seen the word "family" on too many labels from large producers so you'll want to do more investigation. 

LOL

Specific wine descriptors

This would be flavors, tastes, smells, and specific foods you should pair this wine with. This drives me crazy. First, everyone's sense of smell is different. Second, these notes were written before the wine was bottled to get them on the labels. The wine will taste different whenever you open it months or years later.

There are valid words that will give you an idea of the wine's style, such as plush, rich, powerful, elegant, light-bodied, or full-bodied. 

Why this wine is special

A piece of info I found on an Oregon Chardonnay bottle was, "Winemaking is gentle and natural with fermentation from indigenous yeast". There's really no definition to what this all means, and there's no proof that any of it makes a difference. I wouldn't buy a wine just because they said they were gentle with the grapes. And many are jumping on the "natural" bandwagon; a word that sounds wonderful with no actual definition behind it.

There are things about the winemaking style that can help, such as the brix the grapes were harvested at, barrels used, lees or malolactic, etc. though these are things a lot of consumers don't understand and would likely just be confused by. If I actually understood much about winemaking, then knowing how they pressed the grapes would probably as important as anything else, but that's getting pretty nerdy.  :)