The Treasury Department sets labeling laws for alcoholic products. These are usually set and occasionally modified by feedback from interested parties, aka lobbyists. One that needs a change is for wines labeled as American, as in American Merlot.
Political origins, such as country, state or county are covered under rules stating that 75% of the grapes must come from the named country, state, or county.
That is, a wine labeled as Sonoma County Merlot can have up to 25% of its fruit from another area in the state. Is it likely to be from Napa? Nope, it's likely to be from somewhere with cheaper grapes, such as the Central Valley. If the grapes did come from another premium growing area, the back label is likely to say something like, "Merlot grapes sourced from Sonoma and Napa Counties."
It is the same with the state. A wine labeled California Merlot could actually have up to 25% of its grapes from another state. I don't know that this happens very often.
The real problem is with those cheaper wines, often sold in jugs or as boxed wine, that are labeled as American because up to 25% of the grapes can come from another country. This will be cheap, imported bulk wine. It seems obvious to me that a wine labeled as American should be from American grapes processed in America. This flaw in the law is something used by larger wine corporations.
You can certainly make the same argument for county or state labeled wines, but this seems particularly bad for American appellation wine. There's no reason to do this except to "fool" the customer.
No comments:
Post a Comment