Sometimes it can be quite difficult to understand everything that is written on a regular wine label and in fact it is not often that you are interested in detail in what is written when you buy your wine. The name, country of origin, the region and perhaps the vintage are usually the information that most people consider when buying their wine. However, it should be pointed out that a wine bottle contains much more information than that and it can be really interesting to conduct detective work to decode what is written.
The mandatory information :
1. The volume. It is the total volume of the content inside the bottle.
2. Alcohol content : an important designation not least to describe the character of the wine. Below 11% it’s considered to be a light wine and above 13% it is a powerful wine. In between is situated the average alcohol strength. In recent years, it is becoming more common with wines that reach as much as 14-15% alcoholic strength.
On the one hand, it is the climate that has changed noticeably. The strong summer sun creates grapes with a high sugar content, which then provide wines with a high alcohol content. But that is not the whole truth, the taste trend has in the last 10-15 years gone in the direction of stronger and more alcoholic wines, sometimes called “bomb wines”. The growing interest in Chateau-neuf-du-pape, the entire Rhône Valley and Amarone in Italy is proof for that.
3. The wine category : describes which category the wine belongs to by law (see How to identify a wine). These categories are “Vin de France”, “IGP” (indication géographique protegée) or AOP (appelation d’origine protégée). The latter 2 categories also describe where the wine comes from geographically.
4. Responsible bottler : name and address of the person who is legally responsible for the wine for any complaints.
5. Sanitary regulations : EU legislation requires the presence of sulphites exceeding 10mg / L of SO2 to be marked “Contains sulphites”. Sulphites are added mainly to kill bacteria and to ensure good storage of the wine. French legislation also requires the marking of a warning symbol for pregnant women.
The optional information :
1. The brand or name of the vineyard
2. The vintage : is not mandatory but is very useful to know when the wine can be drunk and to evaluate the storage potential when buying the wine. For the wine expert, the vintage is also important for determining the quality of the wine. Today we no longer have any really bad vintages. But there are those who, depending on the region, are considered better than others and whose wines have in general higher storage potential.
3. Grape variety : it is perfectly legal to label the grape variety on wines belonging to the IGP and AOP categories. The EU has also in recent years allowed the name of the grape variety to be marked on the bottle, even though the wine is made up to 15% of a grape variety, other than the one mentioned on the label. This can be defended by the desire to harmonize the legislation with the one which applies in many countries outside the EU.
4. Bottled on the property ‘Mise en bouteille à la propriété’ : it is considered as a label or guarantee of high quality. In addition to the wineries, also the cooperatives have the right to use this marking. When it comes to Champagne, there are 3 different markings :
RM : “recoltant manipulant”, applies when a wine grower also bottles the wine.
NM : “négociant manipulant”, applies when the wine is bottled by someone who bought the wine, but has not been the wine grower.
CM : “cooperative de manipulation”, applies when a cooperative has bottled the wine.
5. Classification : in some regions there are local classifications. For example, for Bordeaux wines (Médoc, Graves, Saint-Emilion, Sauternes), it’s the wineries/castles that have been classified. In Burgundy, on the other hand, it is the soil that determines the classification. “Premier cru” and “Grand cru” are determined by the place where the grapes are grown. The difference can be huge both in taste and price between wines grown at only a few kilometers apart. Alsace also has its “Grand crus” and also Champagne has “Premiers” and “Grands crus”.
6. Organic : this symbol denotes wines coming form an organically run winery, not using pesticides or synthetic fertilizers. This classification can be obtained by being approved by a certification institution afer having conducted 3 years of continous organic farming. It should be added, however, that many of the most prestigious vineyards run an organic farming without marking it for that matter. The reason is that, if there were to be a year with a lot of insect pests, they want to maintain the possibility to use stronger agents than those allowed by biocertificates.
7. Type of wine : certain claims on the label intend to provide information about the type of wine concerned or about its production. For example, “Vendanges tardives” in Alsace for sweet wines made from grapes harvested late. “Vin jaune” or “Vin de paille” in Jura. “Méthode traditionnelle” for sparkling wine made by the carbonic acid naturally created in the bottle from a second fermentation. “Extra-sec, sec, brut, demi-sec” on champagne describes the taste from the driest to the sweetest.
There are also claims like “Elevé en fut de chêne” which means that the wine has been stored on oak barrels, “abscence de filtration” which means that the wine hasn’t been filtered and “absence de soufre” which means that no sulfate was added to the wine. These latter notations are not legislated and therefore there are infinitely many variants that often depend on local tradition and how wine is produced from one region to another.
8. Cuvée : you can sometimes find names on labels that have nothing to do with the mandatory name of the winery, nor with a geographical location. “Cuvée prestige”, “Vieilles vignes” or the name of one of the winegrowers’ children often occurs. It is then a question of a special variant that the winemaker wants to distinguish due to a special production technology or storage technology.
