In the past several years, a debate has arisen in the wine industry over whether or not, like all other food and drink products, wineries and vintners should be required to display nutritional information on their wine bottles. Grape Collective reported on this several months ago, and evaluated each aspect of the arguments, both for and against. This is what they had to say:
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) controls and regulates all food products that are produced, sold, and distributed throughout and within the United States. Alcohol, however, is regulated by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB). That’s the first conflict. The only information required by the TTB on wine bottles is as follows: vintage, estate bottled, AOC, viticultural region, alcohol content, sulfite declaration, brand name, varietal, country, name and address of winery, and net contents.
It’s no secret that wine isn’t exactly where you should go to get your daily dose of…well, anything, really. Wine has many benefits and qualities, but in terms of health (other than those who claim that the antioxidants can benefit your heart) there aren’t many. Wine does not contain any real nutritional value – there is no fat, no cholesterol, no sodium, sometimes a small amount of sugar. Is it worth putting this information (or lack thereof) on an entire label? One benefit to a wine nutrition label, however, would be to display proper serving size. A serving of wine is five ounces (5 oz), the only real information that would be displayed on these nutritional labels would be the serving size, and the amount of calories per serving. As I said, though, it’s no secret that wine isn’t going to fulfill your daily dose of fiber, nor will it help you lose that extra five pounds. That’s not what it’s for, and it likely wouldn’t influence a purchase decision.
Read the rest of the article on Grape Collective for the full argument, both for and against. Do you think wine should be required to post the same nutritional value information that other food and drink products do? Weigh in!
