Will it really help sell wines from Russian River Valley or Alexander Valley if labels for wines from those appellations are required by law to state “Sonoma County” as well as the region?

The trade group Sonoma County Vintners is proposing such a law for so-called “conjunctive labeling” to the state legislature, on the model of a similar law passed in the 1980s for Napa Valley. The idea is to raise recognition for the county as a winemaking region; in other words, this law would be all about marketing. As Tom Wark eloquently points out in his post on this subject on his blog Fermentation, wineries in any of the county’s 13 distinct American Viticultural Areas (AVAs) may append the words “Sonoma County” to their regional designation if they want do, but they may also choose not to; most of them, it seems, do not. After all, labeling practices are in the hands of the Federal Alcohol and Tobacco Trade and Tax Bureau (TTB), which sets the regulations for wine labeling and geographical matters. Why should local authorities try to trump the feds and add even more rules to a complicated business?

And why would a producer in Russian River Valley or Dry Creek Valley not want to have the term “Sonoma County” added to a wine’s front label?

Sonoma County encompasses 13 growing regions (AVAs) that total about 60,300 acres of vines. Theoretically, the different official areas — “official” because they are determined and recognized by the federal government — display distinct enough characteristics to justify their existence, for example, Russian River Valley with its low-lying riverine topography and propensity to morning fog; the warmer Alexander Valley; gently rolling Chalk Hill, with its soil of volcanic ash. The implication (or hope) is that each distinct AVA contributes unique elements of geography and climate to the formation of a wine’s style and character.

“Sonoma County,” on the other hand, is such a broad category that its most legitimate function is as a generic geographic indicator, a way of saying, “This wine was made in a certain county in Northern California.” Such a condition is not necessarily pejorative, especially for inexpensive or moderately-priced wines whose grapes may be blended from several smaller AVAs, of which there are many examples. The point is that there is not an identifiable “Sonoma County” character that can be ascribed to a wine.

If, however, a producer is making prestige-level wines from smaller AVAs with the intention of reflecting the specific influence of that soil and micro-climate in the wine, then adding the term “Sonoma County” to the front label is not merely redundant but distracting. That front label is the billboard, the “Hollywood” sign of a wine bottle; it’s the field where producers state what they think is most important and immediately recognizable about their wines.

Being curious about how many wineries or producers in Sonoma County actually use the “Sonoma County” terms on the front label as well as a smaller AVA, I looked through the review sample rack and refrigerator for examples, and here’s what I came up:

Those That Do Not Mention Sonoma County on the Front Label
<>Frei Brothers Reserve Syrah 2007, Russian River Valley, Northern Sonoma. (The largely useless Northern Sonoma AVA encompasses all of Sonoma County except for the Sonoma Valley and Carneros appellations. It was created in 1985 — and amended in 1986 and 1990 — after a campaign by E & J Gallo. Frei Brothers is a Gallo brand.)

<>Terlato Pinot Noir 2007, Russian River Valley.

<>Sausal Private Reserve Zinfandel 2007, Alexander Valley.

<>Benovia Bella Una Pinot Noir 2007, Russian River Valley.

<>Dry Creek Vineyard The Mariner Meritage 2006, Dry Creek Valley. (Sonoma County stated on back label.)

<>Benziger Signaterra Three Block 2006, Sonoma Valley.

<>La Crema Pinot Noir 2008, Sonoma Coast.

<>Davis Bynum Pinot Noir 2007, Russian River Valley.

<>Louis M. Martini Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2003, Alexander Valley. (Yeah, I know, why do I still have this wine?)

<>Respite Reichel Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, Alexander Valley.

<>Gundlach Bundschu Rhinefarm Vineyard Merlot 2005, Sonoma Valley.

<>EnRoute Les Pommiers Pinot Noir 2008, Russian River Valley.

<>Silver Oak Cabernet Sauvignon 1998, Alexander Valley. (Not a review sample, of course; I bought this at an auction. Perhaps I should drink it with tonight’s pizza.)

<>Thumbprint Cellars Westside Vineyard Chardonnay 2007, Russian River Valley.

<>Hook & Ladder “Third Alarm” Reserve Chardonnay 2003, Russian River Valley. (Why do I still have this wine, too?)

Those That Mention Sonoma County on the Front Label as Well as a Distinct Appellation
<>Murphy-Goode Merlot 2007, Alexander Valley, Sonoma County.

<>Matanzas Creek Merlot 2006, Bennett Valley, Sonoma County.

<>Rodney Strong Brothers Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, Alexander Valley, Sonoma County.

Admittedly this is an anecdotal survey with a plus/minus factor of probably 10,000 percent, but it also speaks pretty clearly; 14 wineries use the specific appellation name without adding Sonoma County, while three do. Yet according to an article by Kevin McCallum in The [Santa Rosa] Press Democrat, “Eight of the county’s nine wine and grape trade groups say they would support a law that would require wines made from local grapes to feature Sonoma County on the label.” The ninth trade group, that of Russian River Valley, is also considered a shoo-in.

What the hell, readers? I mean, I won’t even speculate on the motivations behind these bewildering votes, because I can’t fathom it.

And as I look at other wine labels of bottles clustered about me in phalanxes of rectitude, I can’t help noting that most of them to do not include a broader county designation in addition to a specific appellation. Right at hand are two bottles of wine from Heller Estate that say, “Carmel Valley, California,” but don’t mention Monterey County. Similarly, bottles of vineyard designated pinot noir from Lucienne say “Santa Lucia Highlands,” without mentioning Monterey County. Here’s an Easton Zinfandel 2006 from Fiddletown that doesn’t mention Amador County. And so on.

The exception to these examples, as I mentioned earlier, is Napa Valley, but notice that the legal requirement doesn’t insist on including the term Napa County. Yes, Napa County is also a designated AVA — it’s slightly larger than Napa Valley — and wineries could use the term if they wanted to. I’m sure you have noticed that almost no one does. I mean, who wants to be known as a producer of Napa County wines?

Map of Sonoma County AVAs from sonomainspring.com.

There are two problems with the new guidelines issued this week by the Federal Trade Commission that stipulate that bloggers and other new media writers disclose the sources of the products they review, i.e. if they were free samples. And no, that particular rule isn’t one of the problems. Many wine bloggers already post disclaimers so that readers know that wines being reviewed were sent from wineries or importers or their representatives in hopes of a mention of some kind, preferably positive. And many wine bloggers make it clear that wineries from which they receive samples should have no expectation as to whether a review will be positive or negative or even if the wine will be reviewed at all; that’s exactly as it should be.

No, the first problem, as Tom Wark pointed out eloquently on his blog Fermentation yesterday, is that the FTC’s new disclosure rules do not apply to “traditional” print media because they, presumably, exercise more editorial control over their material and coverage than the rank amateurs of the blogosphere. So publications like Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast and Wine & Spirits, which receive untold thousands of bottles of wine free every year, do not need to disclose that fact to their readers, while a first-time wine blogger, who might feel grateful for a few review samples, must do so. This is a situation for which the phrase “The Double Standard Stinks” was invented.

The second problem is that the drafters of the new FTC guidelines don’t seem to know a hawk from a handsaw when it comes to the difference between a review and an endorsement. The report expresses the principle this way:

“For example, a blogger could receive merchandise from a marketer with a request to review it, but with no compensation paid other than the value of the product itself. In this situation, whether or not any positive statement the blogger posts would be deemed an ‘endorsement’ within the meaning of the Guides would depend on, among other things, the value of that product, and on whether the blogger routinely receives such requests. If that blogger frequently receives products from manufacturers because he or she is known to have wide readership within a particular demographic group that is the manufacturers’ target market, the blogger’s statements are likely to be deemed to be ‘endorsements,’ as are postings by participants in network marketing programs.”

Obviously the FTC equates positive reviews with “endorsements,” as if bloggers were celebrity basketball players on billboards being paid hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to put the force of their internationally known, outsize personalities at the service of athletic shoes and energy drinks. (If only, right?)

A review or critique of anything — book, musical recording, an art exhibition or theatrical performance, a product such as an automobile or a dishwasher, or a bottle of wine — is (or should be) an assessment and evaluation based on knowledge, experience and judgment. For the reader, the benefit lies in the information and analysis upon which to base a decision, to go see that play, to read that book, to purchase that bottle of wine. This result is not the same as an endorsement, in which a celebrity is paid to mouth words conceived by a copy-writer from a marketing or public relations firm. A review is not an advertisement or press release for the object or performance or entity in question.

Yet, annoyingly, the new FTC guidelines refer, again and again, to reviews on blogs as endorsements and to companies that supply products to bloggers for review as advertisers. The case seems devastatingly clear: If I were sent a review copy of a book by a publisher and wrote a review that was published in a print journal or newspaper, the FTC would regard it as a review; if I wrote that review, however, and placed it on my blog, it would be regarded by the FTC as an endorsement for the book, going on the supposition that my blog lacks traditional “editorial responsibility.” And notice, in the quotation from the guidelines above, that the bigger the audience for the blog, the more likely that a review will be considered an endorsement. This is the sort of obtuse reasoning from which Circles of Hell are fashioned.

It’s possible that these guidelines — only a small portion of the 81-page document that focuses primarily on television and magazine advertising — were deemed necessary by the FTC because of the bloggers who review a variety of mainly household products only in a positive manner. Well-known examples of these are the “mommy bloggers” Katja Presnal at skimbacolifestyle.com and Christine Young of FromDatestoDiapers.com. As Tim Arango wrote yesterday in The New York Times about Christine Young, “If she doesn’t like a product, she simply won’t write about it.”

Now I’m not telling my Fellow Wine-Bloggers to pick out a bottle of wine and kick it in the teeth just for fun, but I will say that giving only positive reviews does not build credibility or a reputation for objectivity. In fact, writing only positive reviews creates the impression that all you’re doing is, yes, endorsing products without engaging a balancing critical sensibility. And providing negative or even not wholly positive reviews is a boon for your readers; doesn’t it make as much sense to warn them away from mediocrity as to extol what is superior?

The FTC guidelines for bloggers take effect on Dec. 1, though the enterprise is fraught with ambiguity. If I write a post in which I review 12 wines, must I include a disclaimer for each wine or a blanket disclaimer for the post? Or is it all right to include a permanent disclaimer for the blog that covers all posts and all wines? The FTC hasn’t made that clear. What is clear is that in the next few months the sort of confusion and consternation that leads to lawsuits will reign.

During the four days that I was in Germany in July, our group heard over and over from producers and winemakers that the Wine Law of 1971 marked a body-blow to the German wine industry from which it has struggled for almost 40 years to recover. Indeed, in his chapter on the Wine Law in The Wines of Germany (Mitchell Beazley, 2003), Stephen Brook uses words like “abuse,” villainous,” “terminological rape” and “inanity” to describe the regulations and their effects. While an explanation of German wine label terms and the strictures of the Wine Law could take a semester of seminars and workshops, let me heroically attempt such a feat in one incredibly over-simplifying blog post.

(This post is not a guide to reading German wine labels. For that precise information go here or here.)

And before we leap to the heart of the matter, let me draw an analogy between the vineyard systems of Burgundy and Germany. In contrast to Bordeaux, for example, where the estate and the wine are synonymous, in Burgundy and Germany the villages and vineyards hold the qualitative pride of place, with many producers making wine from the same vineyard, of which they may own a piece or purchase grapes from another owner. In Bordeaux, for example, Chateau Lafite-Rothschild is the name of the wine and the estate, and its vineyards are its own. On a Burgundy label, the words Volnay Le Cailleret indicate (first) the village and (second) the vineyard, just as on a German label the words Nierstein Ölberg indicate the same village/vineyard sequence. Most of the wine world follows the model of Bordeaux, to greater or lesser degree.

O.K., now, here’s how the German Wine Law struck the death knell for the country’s fine wine estates.

First, the committees that came up with the Wine Laws completely ignored the traditions of quality differences among vineyards. Let’s face it: some vineyards are better than others. That’s why, in Burgundy, for instance, Chambertin-Clos de Bèze, a Grand Cru vineyard, (usually) commands a higher price than Gevry-Chambertin Les Cazetiers, a Premier Cru vineyard, or why, in California, wines made from vineyards with long histories of producing high-quality wines, such as To-Kalon or Sanford & Benedict, are sought after by collectors. What makes one vineyard better than another is a subject for another post or seven, but, briefly, it’s a matter of the nuances of exposure, drainage and soil/sub-soil composition along with variations in the consistency of warmth and coolness during the day and at night. Such details, both minute and sweeping, of geography and micro-climate can change within a few hundred yards or even from one side of a road to the other. Fortunes depend on such subtleties.

As far as the German Wine Law is concerned, however, the greatest virtue of a wine is not where it came from or the grape variety from which it was made but the ripeness of the grapes.

The whole spectrum of German wines falls under these divisions: 1. Deutscher Tafelwein (German table wine); 2. Landwein (country wine); 3. Qualitätswein bestimmer Anbaugebiete (QbA, quality wine of a specified appellation); and 4. Qualitätswein mit Prädikat (QmP, quality wines with distinction). The vast majority of wine made in Germany is Tafelwein and Landwein; few regulations apply to these levels and little is exported. QbA wines — often signified just by the word Qualitätswein on labels — must conform to regional laws and must be tested by a compliance committee; these wines may have sugar added during fermentation to achieve the required level of alcohol.

QmP wines, which may not have sugar added to them, were codified in the German Wine Law of 1971 as such: Kabinett; Spätlese, Auslese; Beerenauslese, Trockenbeerauslese. The categories are defined by law in ascending order, starting with Kabinett, in terms of the ripeness of the grapes and the potential alcohol content (that is to say, from driest to sweetest) and the specific lateness and method of harvest. The Wine Law clearly implies that the ascending order is one of increasing quality; a Spätlese wine, in other words, is inherently “better” than a Kabinett and so on.

Second, the German Wine Law of 1971 shanghaied the names of well-favored villages and attached them to broad regional designations (Grosslages), thereby diluting the reputation of the village and its often illustrious vineyards. “How many people would know,” Brook writes in The Wines of Germany, “that Piesporter Goldtröpfchen was the name of one of the finest sites on the Mosel, while Piersporter Michelsberg was a Grosslage name that incorporated a vast area of utterly mediocre vineyards on overfertile flat land at some distance from the river?” In other words, it is perfectly legal for a wine designated Piesporter Michelsberg to have no wine from Piesport in it.

Obviously this scheme favors large producers who can take advantage of a famous name to display on labels of generic wine. It also favors wine sellers who can persuade their customers to purchase more expensive Spätlese or Auslese wines because they’re “better” than Kabinetts. (I saw a newsletter from a German wine club that described the principle virtue of QbA wines as “to mix with club soda.”)

However, some of the best wines I tried in Germany were Kabinett wines of classic intensity and authority or Spätleses made in the dry or “half-dry” (trocken or halb-trocken) fashion. Other great wines I encountered were QmP wines declassified to QbA or deliberately made outside the QmP system, just as producers in Italy used to opt for the lowly Vino da Tavola designation to make wines from officially unapproved grapes. That’s one method by which fine estates in Germany are trying to produce authentic and individualistic wines without being hampered by illogical regulations.

Another method is the creation of a self-regulating regional Grand Cru (Grosses Gewächs) system designed by the VDP (Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter, the Association of German Prädikat Wine Estates) and legalized in 2006. As admirable, however, as this classification system may be in identifying and supporting Germany’s finest vineyards (though who could say that these choices are not arbitrary to some extent), the VDP’s relentless emphasis lies with dry wines at the Kabinett and Spätlese levels, at the expense of the inimitable dessert wines that are the real glory of Germany’s wine industry. It’s true that in a changing world German wine consumers turn increasingly to dry wines, but the wonderful heritage of that golden nectar must not be minimized or forsaken.

Does the American Wine Consumer actually purchase wine based on the American Viticultural Area designated on the label?

Mr. American Wine Consumer: “Look, honey, this chardonnay is from the Santa Maria Valley, so it must be good!”

Mrs. American Wine Consumer: “”I’ll say, sweetie, let’s get it!”

Mr. AWC: “Okey-dokey!”

Mrs. AWC: “By the way, where is the Santa Maria Valley?”

Mr. AWC: “Oh, you know, in, um, California.”

Not meaning to denigrate the knowledge of Mr. & Mrs. American Wine Consumer; I realize that a lot of people out there haunting the aisles of the nation’s retail stores have a lot of facts about wine in hand. I know that people who really love wine probably understand that there is or can be or ought to be differences between, for example, pinot noir wines made in Anderson Valley, Russian River Valley, Carneros and Santa Lucia Highlands. On the other hand, I would say that most people just want a nice bottle of wine to take home for dinner and rely on experience or the advice of a trusted salesperson or brilliant blogger.

Wine producers, on another hand, are pretty obsessive about the exactitudes of geographical designations, and a great deal of time, effort and money and not a little blood has been spilled in the establishment of AVAs. Petitions for new AVAs appear before the TTB (the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau) almost weekly. Being able to say on the label, for instance, that one’s wine is from the Napa Valley, because of the region’s historical and qualitative importance, is theoretically more desirable than a broad “California” designation, while a narrower or more specific AVA, like Oakville or Stags Leap within Napa Valley, is theoretically better than just Napa Valley. Carving out a new and distinct AVA can be an important step to legitimizing a winery and its products, at least in the mind of the producer.

This meditation was inspired by a post from September 12 on Tom Wark’s Fermentation called “Let Russian River Valley Take Over the World” that parodies the TTB for entertaining the notion that the Russian River AVA should be enlarged to the south by 550 acres of vineyards. Who would want that done? Well, let’s see; the expansion would give 350 acres belonging to Gallo the right to a Russian River Valley designation on the label. Would the TTB grant such an expansion because the world’s second largest wine producer wanted it? Think of this: The last time the Russian River AVA was expanded, in 2005, it benefited Kendall-Jackson.

All the issues in this matter, with appropriate historical, geographical and climatic background, appeared in a story by Kevin McCallum in the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat on September 11.

If the TTB grants the expansion of the Russian River Valley appellation — and there’s no reason to think that it won’t — the action will serve to emphasize, yet again, that the AVA system is, in some part, meaningless for producers and consumers. According to the AVA guidelines, “We designate viticultural areas to allow vintners to better describe the origins of their wines and to allow consumers to better identify wines they may purchase.” How does that disingenuous expression of good intentions apply to, for example, the North Coast AVA, which encompasses three million acres in Lake, Marin, Mendocino, Napa, Sonoma and Solano counties? (AppellationAmerica.com lists 12 wineries in Solano.) And how does it benefit consumers that the 15,500-acre Dos Rios AVA in Mendocino, approved in November 2005, exists because of one winery, Vin de Tevis, that cultivates six acres of vines? I mean the TTB seems to pass AVAs out like candy — or to the highest bidder.

Of course, many of the AVAs make sense in terms of soil, climate, geography and traditional usage, but those that don’t merely focus our attention on the often ludicrous character of the enterprise and on the political nature of its sometimes dubious accomplishments.

While one might suppose that such issues are managed better in Europe, with its centuries-old heritage of vineyards, small growing and winemaking areas and a pervasive wine culture, one would, to some extent, be wrong.

Oh certainly the communes of Bordeaux and the tiny Grand Cru and Premier Cru vineyards of Burgundy seem irrefutable and secure in the AOC (appellation contrôlée) pantheon and the self-regard of Big Spenders. And it’s gratifying to see, as was recently announced, the addition of a 51st Grand Cru area in Alsace, the 175-acre Kaefferkopf of Ammerschwihr, based on a particular geologic formation, part granite and part limestone, that sets it apart from its neighbors; Kaefferkopf’s elevation to Grand Cru status is also based on a heritage of delimitation going back to 1932. Of course the French being the French and Alsace being Alsace, the percentage of grapes in blending — gewurztraminer, pinot gris and riesling — is prescribed by law. You won’t find that in the Russian River Valley.

On the other hand, the approval of the expansion of Champagne’s vineyard area earlier this year cannot be a harbinger of better quality. The squeeze is on in Champagne, demand is high and prices for grand marques and artisan products are rising, thanks especially to parts of the world — Russia and Asia — where people actually have money to spend. Better to let the situation sort itself out, however painful it might be, than to dilute the reputation of a hallowed region. (Yes, I know, it can be argued that the Grand Marque houses are diluting reputations themselves by overproduction and a certain mechanical aptitude.)

France is also home to one of my favorite bizarre designated wine regions, the Vin de Pays de Méditerranée, a vast area that encompasses 10 departments in the lower Rhone Valley, Provence and the island of Corsica, which is, of course, not officially attached to the mainland of France. One appreciates the desire of local cooperatives to band together for solidarity and marketing purposes, but this Vin de Pays seems to be based primarily on a notion of all things romantic and salable conjured by the word “Mediterranean.”

My point is that consumers are far better off educating themselves in what kinds of wine they enjoy most than in depending on the potential quality of an AVA (or any country’s scheme of designation), whether a vast one or one that’s strictly limited. If you’re interested in pinot noir or sauvignon blanc, buy as many as you can afford from different regions and taste them blind, that is with labels concealed. If you consistently like the examples from one region, concentrate on that region, try other wines of the same genre, explore what’s offered in the style of wine that you like. Ask your friendly trusted retailer (or brilliant blogger) for advice in delving more deeply into what’s available. Trust your palate.

Images from appellationamerican.com and vin-de-mediteranee.org.

I have lived in Memphis for most of my life, but I usually don’t think of myself as living in Tennessee, except at election time. I mean, it’s such a long state, and West Tennessee, where Memphis occupies the far southwest corner, is the most liberal section of the state; there are also Middle and East Tennessee. On the other hand, to read the letters to the editor of the newspaper where I work and especially to read the comments on the paper’s website, you would think that Memphis is about as liberal as Myanmar. When I travel and people ask me if I’m from Tennessee, my first impulse is to say, “No, not me,” but then I catch myself and say, “Uh, yeah, but I live in Memphis.”

These ruminations are prelude to offering some facts about selling and buying and obtaining wine in Tennessee, whose nickname is the Volunteer State.

Now, Tennessee is a felony state, which means that it’s a felony to ship wine to an individual inside the state; the penalty goes against the shipper, so a winery could lose its license to do business in Tennessee. Last spring, the Tennessee state legislature, for the umpteenth time, voted down proposals that would have allowed grocery stores sales of wine and shipping of wine to consumers in the state without going through a wholesale distributor. It’s the same old story: The lobbying efforts of the retail and wholesale associations and the state’s fundamentalist religious element defeat these bills every time, though since the U.S. Supreme Court decided that states could not allow wineries in-state to sell directly to consumers if they didn’t allow out-of-state wineries the same right, if don’t see how that notion can stand much longer.

Each county and municipality in Tennessee can decide, by vote, whether it will be “wet” or “dry” or in what degree. Memphis did not get liquor-by-the-drink until 1972; people brown-bagged their bourbon and paid for set-ups. Some entire counties are dry; some towns allow certain alcoholic beverages to be sold and not others. It’s a puritanical patchwork designed to diminish the simple (and moderate) pleasure of consuming alcoholic beverages.

While wine and liquor stores in other states are allowed to sell wine glasses and cork-screws, may hold wine tastings in the stores and can even sell gourmet food items and other comestibles, none of these are allowed in Tennessee. Think of that: In Tennessee, a wine store cannot hold an event that brings in a winemaker or producer to introduce new products to customers. The motivation seems to be to allow as little contact as possible between those who make the wine and those who sell the wine.

An example of this retrograde philosophy occurred recently when a winery in California wanted to send me some samples. “No problem,” I said, “I’ve been getting samples delivered to me for many years.” “Yeah,” said the winery, “but Tennessee is a felony state, we don’t want to take a chance. How about if we send it to the wholesaler?” “Well,” I said, “that’s OK, but I may not see the wine for six months, or I might never see it. Wholesalers get lots of wine all the time, and they don’t necessarily look at who the box is addressed to or in care of.”

I thought perhaps the winery could ship the samples, in my name, in care of a local retail store, but to make sure, I called the owner of a store in my neighborhood and asked: “Can you accept a box of wine for me in care of your store?”

“No can do, F.K.,” said the owner. “That’s against the law in Tennessee. The ABC wants to keep contact between suppliers and stores to a minimum. So I can’t call a winery and ask to have some samples sent to the store. And that means that we only get to try wines that the wholesalers bring us, we can’t ask the wholesalers to bring in wine we’ve sampled here. We,re trying to get the law changed.”

That particular situation may be a minor annoyance, but it fits an age-old pattern of a seemingly paternalistic government making matters as difficult as possible for adults to enjoy alcoholic beverages that are legal to sell and consume and, in fact, to make the selling of those legal adult beverages as difficult as possible.

Did you know that in New York City, wine and liquor stores can be open on Sunday if they choose? Holy moly, what blasphemy, allowing alcoholic beverages to be sold on the Sabbath! New York certainly lives up to its reputation as the New World’s center of sin and decadence!

A bulletin recently published by the Office of Champagne and the Center for Wine Origins carries the title — or “hed,” as we call it in the Worshipful Company of Ink-Stain’d Wretches — “Poll Shows Majority of U.S. Wine Purchasers Against Misleading Labels.”

One would think that this issue would fall into the category of “It Goes Without Mention.” I mean, isn’t this rather like saying “Poll Shows Majority of Major League Baseball Players Against Random Drug Testing” or “Poll Shows Majority of Vegans Against Beating Baby Seals to Death”?

Anyway, according to the report, “79% agree that consumers deserve protection from deceptive claims on food and beverage labels.” Only 63 percent, however, would “support a law prohibiting misleading labels because they believe it is the best way to protect the names of wine regions around the world, including domestic names such as Napa Valley and Sonoma County.” (I love how pollsters word their questions.) You have to wonder who the 21 percent are who do not agree that consumers deserve protection from deceptive claims on food and beverage labels or the 37 percent who would not support a law prohibiting misleading labels because they believe it is the best way to protect the names of wine regions around the world etc etc. What are they feeding their children?

The Center for Wine Origins is based in Washington D.C. Financed by the European Union and the governments of France, Spain and Portugal, the CWO’s purpose is to lobby on behalf of the regions of Champagne, Sherry and Port against misuse of those widely-known terms, meaning that only products made in those regions should be called Champagne or Port or Sherry. How serious is the problem? Says the CWO: “47% of the U.S. sparkling wine market is dominated by products mislabeled ‘champagne.’” And: “4 out of every 5 bottles of ‘Sherry’ sold in our country are not products of Jerez, Spain.”

Now either the semantics or the logic is a little fuzzy here. If “47% of the U.S. sparkling wine market is dominated by products mislabeled ‘champagne,’” than 53 percent of the products are not mislabeled champagne, right? So actually the U.S. sparkling wine market is not dominated by mislabeled labels. Or am I missing the point?

But let’s get to the real point. Sparkling wine made anywhere in the world other than Champagne should not be labeled as such, and the same principle applies to Port and Sherry, as well as Chianti, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Brunello di Montalcino, Rioja and any other wine named after and associated with a definite place; those place names evoke a sense of history, tradition, technique and style that are inseparable from those places. In 2006, after years of negotiating with the EU, the United States agreed that no new labels of sparkling wine produced within our borders could use the term Champagne. The truth is that reputable producers of traditionally-made (that is in the Champagne manner of second fermentation in the bottle) sparkling wine in California, Oregon, Washington and other states had long ago abandoned the use of the name.

But large producers of bulk sparkling wines, such as E.& J. Gallo, Korbel and Cook’s, were grandfathered into the deal, so that millions of gallons of sparkling wines made in tanks and often selling for as little as $4 a bottle, as with Gallo’s Andre Champagne — the best-selling brand of sparkling wine in the country — were allowed to use the term.

By the way, urbandictionary.com lists (lower case) “andre champagne” as a verb meaning to pop open a bottle of sparkling wine, hit a girl in the eye with the cork and douse her with the foaming beverage, as in “Hey, dude, let’s andre champagne those babes!” I have simply got to get out more.

All right, let’s go ahead and say that it’s unfair that Gallo and Korbel and Cook’s are allowed to use “champagne” on their labels in defiance of the wishes of the EU and the ancient houses of Champagne. But before the CWO gets too much in a twitter, let’s remember that the person who is suddenly conscience-stricken and decides not to fling down four georges for his Andre Champagne because it is mislabled is not going to turn around and drop 50 big ones on a bottle of Pol Roger. It’s a matter of price and perspective. Pol Roger and Taittinger and Roederer and all the other venerable Champagne houses are just not going to capture the Andre market, no matter how the labels look or how they are worded.

On the other hand, a guy could be so bitter nowadays that even a bottle of Andre might look pretty good.

Once more a wine direct shipping bill has been introduced into the Tennessee state legislature. Will it be doomed to failure as the others have been, brought low by an unsavory alliance of the state’s wholesalers and retailers with conservative Christians?

Senate Bill 2686 was introduced by Doug Jackson, a Democrat from Dickson County, in Middle Tennessee, not far from Nashville.

It would seem that the timing is propitious to give residents of Tennessee the right to purchase wine from retailers or wineries in other states and have it shipped to them, just as they can with clothing or food or books or furniture or just about any other consumer item. In its decision in 2005 in Granholm v. Heald, the U.S. Supreme Court stated the case pretty plainly: “States may not enact laws that burden out-of-state producers and shippers simply to give a competitive advantage to in-state businesses.” In other words, if retail stores and wineries can sell wine to consumers in-state, so can sellers from out-of-state. The prevalence of Internet wine sales and auction sites makes this tendency inevitable, and retailers and wholesale distributors in Tennessee need to face the reality of the wine world of the future and make adjustments.

Some state legislatures have done an end-run around the Supreme Court. Illinois, for example, enacted a law that forbids ANY winery, in-state or out-of-state, from shipping directly to consumers, dealing a serious blow to the state’s small wine industry. Surely that act will be challenged soon.

Summarizing the bureaucratic language of Senate Bill 2686, the propositions, besides details of enforcement and paperwork, are these:
1. Any “wine manufacturer, producer, supplier, importer, wholesaler, distributor or retailer” in-state or out-of-state may register in Tennessee and obtain a license — the initial cost is $500 with annual renewal for $250 — to ship up to two cases of wine annually “directly to a resident of Tennessee who is at least twenty-one (21) years of age” for personal use. Shipments must be clearly marked as containing alcoholic beverages.
2. The wine may not be shipped to “a county or municipality that has not authorized the sale of alcoholic beverages by local option election.” That’s right, readers, Tennessee still has dry or partially dry counties and towns. Until 1972, you couldn’t buy a cocktail in a restaurant in Memphis, and as many people know, Jack Daniels in distilled in a dry county.
3. Sales and excise taxes must be paid on the wines, whether shipped from in-state or out-of-state entities.

Tom Wark, executive director of the Specialty Wine Retailers Association, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the passage of direct shipment legislation — and proprietor of the Fermentation blog — called S.B. 2686 “a good bill.”

“The proposed Tennessee direct shipping bill means that consumers in the state have complete access to the wines they want,” Wark wrote to me in a recent email message. “This also means that the bill conforms to the requirements that states must treat in-state and out-of-state shippers equally, as noted in the Granholm v. Heald Supreme Court decision and the recent Siesta Village Market v. Perry decision in Texas that proclaimed that retailers as well as wineries are protected by the principles announced in Granholm. The bill provides for the state to collect taxes on retailer and winery shipments, which is important for the state. And, finally, it provides for safeguards with regard to minor access to wine, a very prudent addition to the bill.”

While Wark — and everybody who would potentially benefit from passage of the bill — would like to see a higher limit on the amount of wine that can be shipped to an individual, “this is something we can live with,” he said.

Now let’s hope that the politicians, the retailers and wholesalers and their fundamentalist allies don’t try to inject fear and loathing into a campaign against the bill, conjuring the horrific — and completely false — specter of crazed teenagers using their parents’ credit cards to order cases of Screaming Eagle over the Internet. That scare tactic is complete baloney.

The term “old vines” on a wine label conjures an image of a hillside in Sonoma County that supports thick, gnarled, somewhat stunted grapevines, usually zinfandel, planted in the 1880s or 1890s or early 1900s by Italian immigrants. The vines are so old that they must be carefully tended, and they manage to bring forth only a handful of grapes in each vintage. Yet how deep, rich and flavorful are the wines that these venerable vines produce, like the essence of the grapes, the vine and the vineyard itself. Drinking an “old vine” zinfandel, we feel as if we are imbibing not merely wine but the history of California itself, the struggle of the immigrants, the tales of failure and success, the origins of the Golden State’s wine industry.

But how old is an old vine? Sometimes a wine label that uses the term “old vines” will state that the wine was made from 50-year-old vines. Is that really old compared to a vineyard planted in the 1890s? If one producer can call the wine made from 100-year-old vines “Old Vines,” does the producer of a wine made from 30-year-old vines have the right to use the same term?

Before we tackle the issue itself — because the term “old vines,” like the designation “reserve” and its many variations, is completely unregulated by state or federal laws — let’s talk about the concept itself.

It is an article of faith, in Europe (especially France) as well as in California, that wine made from old vines is inherently better than wine made from young (or younger) vines. A vineyard, after being planted, usually takes seven to 10 years to produce grapes that might be made into superior wine, while vines at the ages of, say, 25 to 50 years may potentially produce wines of great character. Wines made from those 100-to-120-year-old zinfandel or “field blend” vineyards in Sonoma County can be a models of purity, intensity and integrity.

However, the term “Old Vines” on a wine label does not guarantee, as some writers assert, that a wine will display the highest quality; our notions of “old vine” virtues are enmeshed in romantic ideas about the history of the vineyards and the wines they produce. As Tom Pellechia wrote about the “old vines” concept on VinoFictions in August: “Of course, this whole subject is mere sentimentality. Whether they are old vines or new vines, it still takes good grapegrowing and winemaking to produce the best wine.” Yep, it’s possible to take great grapes from a venerable vineyard and fuck up the whole process; I’ve had “old vine” zinfandels that tasted like stewed raisins on steroids.

Conceding, though, that it’s possible to make fabulous and unique wines from old vine vineyards, what should the consumer who plucks such a wine from a shelf in a neighborhood wine and liquor store think? Since the term “old vines” is officially unsupervised, producers can put anything on labels they want to, even if the vineyards are 25 or 30 or 35 years old. What, then, is the proprietor of truly old vineyards, over which a great deal of pride and work are exercised, supposed to do? Can’t we help out the innocent wine buyer?

I would favor regulation from the TTB that at least required producers who used the term “old vines” to state, on the back label, the age of the vines or vineyard, and if possible the name of the vineyard, from which the grapes derived, as in, “Made from vines planted in 1920 in the Big Heart Vineyard” or, also acceptable, “Produced from grapes planted circa 1895 in Sonoma Valley,” since sometimes exact dates and deeds are obscure.

Joel Peterson, founder of and former winemaker for Ravenswood, recommends that vines be classified in this way: 0 to 10 years, young vines; 10 to 50 years, middle age; 50 to 80 years, old vines; over 80 years, ancient vines — see the discussion about old vine zinfandel at the website of the Sonoma County Winegrape Commission — though I wonder if we need an official classification for young and middle aged vines. Meanwhile, Tom Wark, writing on Dec. 14, on Fermentation in his guise as “Wine Czar,” recommended that all “old vines” be required to be 50 years old or older, a scheme that has the advantage of simplicity.

In any case, consumers need to know with confidence that when they pick up a bottle of wine designated “Old Vines” or “Century Vines” or “Grandfather Vines” that they’re getting something real, not a phrase tricked out by a producer’s marketing department.

FK took the photograph of a zinfandel vine in the Barricia Vineyard in Sonoma Valley, originally planted in 1858 and replanted between 1885 and 1940.

Winemakers and producers in American, though they usually don’t want to admit this, have a much easier time as far as governmental regulations are concerned than their counterparts in Europe. Or maybe they do admit it, but sort of gruffly, in an American sort of way. In America, the rules set down by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), formerly the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms — and thank god they finally got the guns out of there! now the vice president can handle those directly! — primarily effect what terms can be printed on wine labels and what the terms mean.

In Europe, the story is far different. The regulations laid down by the official wine bureaus of various countries stipulate what kinds of grapes can be grown in what regions and what grapes go into different sorts of wines, often including the minimum percentages of grapes in blended wines. Some rules are so stringent that they dictate what the yields must be in the vineyards, what sort of trellising system must be used and when harvest must begin.

Whew, I’m glad we don’t have to worry about all that stuff in America! Our guiding power is the can-do spirit of frontier individualism which says, essentially, plant any grapes anywhere you want to and make the wine any way you can. The main point, as far as the TTB is concerned, is that fraud not be perpetuated by misleading label terms. So, if a label says that the wine is from Sonoma County, it “must be derived from not less than 75% of grapes, citrus or other fruit or other agricultural commodity grown in the named county AND must be fully finished (except for cellar treatment and blending which does not result in an alteration of class and type) in the state in which the named county is located.” I’m quoting here from the official Department of Treasury The Beverage Alcohol Manual: Basic Mandatory Labeling Information for Wine, a fascinating document written 75% in real English and available here.

If the label states that the wine is a product of an approved American Viticultural Area (AVA), such as Russian River Valley or Stags Leap District, then the amount of grapes in the wine from that AVA must be 85 percent. If the label states that the wine was “Estate Bottled,” then 100 percent of the grapes must derive from land owned or controlled by the winery, which much be located within the same AVA as the vineyard and “must crush, ferment the grapes, finish, age, process and bottle the wine on their premises.”

There are other various picayune label matters that producers must attend to, like the size of the type that the government warming is printed in, but it’s good that generally the federal government wants to prevent, as much as possible, the hoodwinking of innocent wine consumers.

Which brings me to the word “reserve,” a term that we see on wine labels all the time over which the TTB has no control at all and has never attempted to control and the whole reason for today’s post.

The word “reserve” on a label implies that the wine is special in some way, that it was, perhaps, produced from a better part of a vineyard, that the wine was selected from barrels whose contents demonstrated higher quality, that more care was taken with its making and that it is limited in production, therefore commanding a high price. There is also the implication that a winery produces a reserve bottling to augment its “regular” wine in the same genre.

Variations on the term “reserve” include Private Reserve, Proprietor’s Reserve, Vineyard Reserve and Vintner’s Reserve, Special Reserve and such terms as Special Selection, Special Release and Our Finest Selection. None of these terms is regulated, so that Glen Ellen, during “the fighting varietals” promotions in the 1980s, was free to label its wines as “Proprietors Reserve,” even though they were produced in the millions of cases and sold for $5 or $6. Then there’s Kendall-Jackson, whose well-known “Vintner’s Reserve” series, costing from about $12 to $16 a bottle, is ubiquitous in the country’s restaurants. Surely the situation is confusing for consumers when they can buy a bottle of Glen Ellen Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon for $5 while the Beringer Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon costs $116 and the Caymus Special Selection costs $136.

I think there need to be some rules, not necessarily the way it is in Tuscany, for example, where the differences between Chianti Classico and Chianti Classico Riserva and between Rosso di Montalcino and Brunello di Montalcino are enforced by government regulations. No, I think it is enough that a producer be required to prove that a wine labeled in some manner to indicate its superiority to a cousin wine from the same winery was indeed derived from a special vineyard or portion of a vineyard, that the grapes received particular treatment in the winery and that the wine was bottled in a limited quantity. These factors should be enumerated on the back label in straightforward language that consumers can understand. Wineries that did not follow these procedures or that could not justify using the terms would not be allowed to produce so-called “reserve” wines.

Next week: A similar rant on an equally nebulous and often misused term, “Old Vines.”