"What's in your wine," by Jane Moore (channel 4)

WINE TALK
1

Recently, a poster named Henrik mentioned the following news clip on Thomas Pellechia’s wine blog, Vinofictions:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=101528008" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://vinofictions.com/2009/12/30/end-of-year-thoughts/#comments" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

2

Ok piece; a bit sensationalistic but probably it needs to be. Thanks for pointing this out.
I doubt we will see ingredient labeling anytime soon for wine.
Nor will we see disclosure on farming praqctices in the food or wine industry. We should.
Another good take on the subject can be found at
Wine Tasting, Vineyards, in France: What's In The Wine?" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
E

3

Emilio, your weblink is orders of magnitude better than the news clip I unearthed. Thanks !!

4

“Artificial yeast”? Seriously? headbang

5

Brian,

Granted. Both Emilio and Thomas Pellechia have pointed out several shortcomings of the news clip. I suppose the news clip connotes non-natural yeast (GM? or selected in a lab for particular traits?). Perhaps you would be willing to comment about whether or not the news clip and/or Emilio’s weblink discusses a taboo topic understood within the ITB community but much more seldomly described to a winemaker’s main customer – namely, we under-informed consumers. [wink.gif]

6

I’ve commented on this topic ad nauseam in many, many threads. I don’t want to repeat all that stuff again.

The fact is that wine is regulated like any other food product. The FDA has rules to guarantee the saftey of the product. As far as labeling goes, there’s one hard fact that we all have to live with: The TTB requires all labels to be approved. That’s done to protect the consumer by providing tracibility/accountablility of the claims made on the label regarding varitey, varietal mix, origin, etc. But that leads to certain limitations. One of which being that the time required to get labels approved necessarily means that things potentially done to the wine just before bottling (fining, filtering, coppering, etc) aren’t known when labels need to be submitted. That’s where the FDA rules come in setting limits to the amount of any residual chemical/component can be in the finished wine. And no matter how much anyone wants to complain, the TTB isn’t going to budge.

And most of the things people seem to want to know would fall under “trade secrets”. There’s no way the gov’t should force wineries to disclose, for example, that the oak notes in their wine came from oak chips instead of barrels. That would be like forcing Coca Cola to reveal their secret formula. While most wineries will tell you if asked, it should be their decision.

7

Considering the sorry state of our food supply, this is the last thing I’d concern myself with. Someone please tell me what kinds of antibiotics and hormones are injected into the meat we eat daily.

8

Of the 84,000 chemicals in commercial use in the United States – from flame retardants in furniture to household cleaners – nearly 20 percent are secret, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, their names and physical properties guarded from consumers and virtually all public officials under a little-known federal provision.

…
At a time of increasing public demand for more information about chemical exposure, pressure is building on lawmakers to make it more difficult for manufacturers to cloak their products in secrecy. > Congress is set to rewrite chemical regulations this year for the first time in a generation.

Use of potentially harmful chemicals kept secret under law

By Lyndsey Layton
Monday, January 4, 2010
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/03/AR2010010302110.html?hpid=topnews" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Perhaps the secrecy tide (in general, not necessarily wine) is turning?

9

I’d be happy, if for a start, the wine industry just be forced to state whether they add megaPurple or one of its cousins!

Surely, that wouldn’t be difficult. Brian would probably think that’s a trade secret! pileon

10

Why? is mega purple dangerous? If there was MP in Schrader or Maybach and they admitted to it, I’d go huh, and keep on drinking it. You would stop drinking your favorite wine if MP was in it Gordon? If so, why? out of principle? Irrelevant but Im curious, do you ever eat fast food or drink soda? Eat ice cream maybe? USDA beef perhaps?

11

Humberto;

I don’t know if mP is dangerous. It’s a trade secret on how it’s made and what all is in it. It is more than a concentrate.

MSG is not “dangerous”, but I don’t eat prepared foods that contains it ( I do get headaches from it). But guess what, as a consumer, I get to look at the package and decide! Contains msg, back on the shelf, quite simple really. Millions of people eat foods with msg, and other additives, everyday, and that’s OK. They get to choose. Does or should one have to be allegeric to msg to choose to not buy foods with it?

Whenever I have the time, I do want to explore more info on copper fining and screw caps. I know there are limits on copper levels in wines, but our limits are different than Aussie limits I believe. From an earlier thread on screw tops, it doesn’t seem as if this process isn’t as easy or straightforeward as some claim. Anyone know any good websites on this subject?

12

Well headaches are bad :wink:
I was just curious. What Ive read from MP indicates that it is pretty much a concentrate. Id like to know more about MP rather than necessarily know which wines have it, as Im sure I wouldnt stop drinking them. Hell, I know the kinds of antibiotics, proteins and waste that get pumped into cows in the US and I still eat beef.

13

Paul White and John Gilman (both of whom have posted on this board) have studied up on this topic. You might consider PMing either of them or both of them. Paul White’s articles on the topic are also available with a little searching on the web as well as on eBlob (I posted several links there, not all of which still work).

14

I’ve been in and around this industry for a long time, and I think I’m pretty in touch with what goes on in the north coast. And for all the times I see posts talking about Mega-purple, I dont know of a single winemaker who has ever released a wine with this stuff in it.

Maybe its because my circle of friends chooses a winemaking approach that doesnt use (or even need) this kind of shit, maybe its because Pinot Noir doesnt need this kind of shit to be dark (one can hang grapes and use extraction techniques) if that is your goal, or maybe, as someone is sure to say, its because they did use it and didn’t tell me.

Or maybe, gasp, the product manufacturer is inflating the amount it claims to sell…nah, they would never do that…

For most of us, the ingredient list in our wines is the same: Grapes, Sulfur, and occassionally a touch of tartaric acid derived from grapes. A lot of the “manipulations” folks get so excited about are nowhere near as common as some of those in the media (like people needing to write a story) might like you to believe.

15

John;

You have my respect! (a) Certainly nothing bad about anything you listed and (b) you listed them. Bravo!

As to the other part of your comments concerning your comrades. I’m old enough to remember Jimmy Dean when he was a singer/ comedian. At a corporate social function, he was attending once, he was talking about his sausage and it’s wonderful home style flavor, just like he had when he was a kid. I said" Did you Mama put msg in her sausage? It was no where to be found in my mama’s kitchen, and we canned sausage after butchering hogs, for years because we didn’t have a freezer".

Jimmy looked at me and said “msg, don’t even know what it is, we don’t use anything like that in our sausage!”

About two years later mandatory ingredience labeling came out and you can guess the rest. Now, one can rightly say that Jimmy is/was mostly a figure head for the sausage, but part of the moral is that what people will tell you and what they have to factually put in print will sometimes surprise you (or maybe not)!

16

Don’t forget the lumber! (not your wines specifically John). [stirthepothal.gif]

RT