Very good article by AdamLee in AlderYarrow’s Vinography:
As he takes on the stupid claims by PURE The Winery about zero sugar in their wines.
A really nice piece of work by Adam.
Tom
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The advertising claim is untrue, but the relatively small levels of sugar really don’t matter. I have no connection to PURE, but use intermittent fasting and wine is the last source of carbs I worry about.
Pssst, here’s another secret, the alcohol levels reported on labels are untrue as well
Do any of the other articles have testing results for Dry Farm Wines? (The one I read didn’t.)
Here, Adam submitted 4 PURE wines to ETS. Sugar for all four were well in the normal range for dry wine. Three of the four were above normal (for our era, the last few decades) for SO2.
The premise for “zero sugar” is the TTB going along with the FDA mindset, where that’s not literal (and not less than normal dry wines). So, I wonder if others’ claims of “no additives” mean anything at all. I find it dubious a large scale distributor of alleged no sulfite, no Velcorin wines that ships nationally, year round could be being truthful.
Good for Adam. Consumers are very critical of false advertising and rightfully so.
This whole better for you movement in wine reminds me of the craft Bourbon movement where much was made at MGP or contracted…nothing wrong with that, top notch liquid, until you claim it’s your own vs. tell folks you have to buy some while your stocks age.
Hopefully more wineries see this as a reason to add Nutrition Facts to labels to show consumers their wine isn’t that much different from the “better for you” Cadre of advertisers.
You are quite correct (and I tried to point out in the article) that the TTB says that a “zero sugar” wine can have small amount of sugar. But the TTB also says that the advertising claims made by wineries can’t be false and so when Pure says that have developed "A unique and natural fermentation technique ensures that all the sugars from the grapes are completely converted into alcohol” then I call it bullshit when the wine has sugar in it.
Adam Lee
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Adam,
Thank you. Glad someone is calling out these producers.
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Plenty do on social media. The facebook algorithm has them hitting all the winemakers and other industry folks on there, so that just brings on a lot of trolling and refutation. They still obviously drown much of that out. Many of the Dry Farm claims seemed to be written by people who know nothing about wine, as do their replies to questions. So many of those claims were laughably off-the-wall. They seemed to do a gradual tactical retreat from many of those, but some outlandish claims have reappeared.
I agree the TTB should crack down on these folks. There’s a difference between run-of-the-mill deceptive marketing and making false health claims. There’s supposed to be zero tolerance for that.
As an aside, a friend who’s a keto expert (science background, lost 70 lbs plus other major health benefits staying true to a keto diet) says a lot of packaged foods that say “keto friendly” aren’t. So, I’m guessing the FDA is clueless on the subject, as I’m sure the TTB is, or they’d be cracking down. My weak understanding is if you stray just a little, your body can switch out of ketosis and it can take weeks to get back. In other words, that a pretty big deal to f**k someone over with a false claim.
I applaud Alder Yarrow for diving into this issue. Before the Lee article appeared, Alder had already been covering this issue. Bravo to them both.
So depressing that we can’t even get a simple standard like “zero sugar” correct. WTF!
Good for you.
P.S. Recently had the Bucher wines. Holy hell! Nice work!
Exactly. With some food ingredients that approach is okay, like for when we are only trying to minimize something in our diet. But clearly, there is another standard that is used for some ingredients. How would “zero peanuts” go over on a label of a product that carried some minimal amount that was enough to kill someone with an allergy? Also, there’s a huge difference between the “Nutritional Facts” showing “Sugars 0g” when it’s half a gram or less and being allowed to claim “zero sugar” on the package or anywhere. For most of us trying to keep our sugar intake down towards some rational level, the former is fine. For someone where it’s a critical issue, they know to see that for what it is and are looking for a specific claim or disclosure. So, this claim of zero sugar is a serious fraud on the consumer. It’s clearly intentional and reckless. I’m sure they’re ready for a lawyerly civil court defense. So, the TTB should look at this as being accordingly.