Ingredients listings and key taste components found in commercial wines

Barrel tasting dark, rich, vividly flavorful Cabernet Sauvignon.

Sugar and spice and all that’s nice, as the old nursery rhyme goes.

There are lots of nice things in wine, although there are very few wineries that actually print “Ingredients”—that is, additions dropped on top of natural components of wines during the winemaking process—on back labels; ostensibly, because it is felt by most of the industry that most consumers might be shocked if they find out what actually ends up in commercial grade wine. If you are not required to list everything going into a bottle (a circumstance many consumer advocates think should be changed), why do it?

I was at one Sonoma County winery’s tasting room just last week, tasting the brand’s signature estate grown Cabernet Sauvignon. The owner explained that over the years she has had problems impressing upon consumers that her grapes are certified organic and the fact that her wines are made in the lowest interventionist way possible (that is, without compromizing quality or terroir expression). So she borrowed the idea of printing ingredients on her back label from another winery that specializes in minimal intervention wine. This is the exact wording found on her bottlings...

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The new light (and chillable) red wine paradigm

The 2023 Christina's Outlier, the Grenache-based Lodi grown red that now stands as the epitome of the new "light and chillable" red wine paradigm.

Last week, Dr. Stephanie Bolton—Lodi Winegrape Commission’s Director of Grower Education and Sustainability—organized what she called a “Light, Chillable Red Wine Rendezvous,” attended by a dozen an a half local vintners. Why? Because Bolton truly believes this style of wine is the wave of the future, thus calling for serious discussion. 

In fact, some of the vintners who attended are already reporting market success with this style of red wine. It is an emerging wine category that may very well help drag the American wine industry out of its current state of doldrums...

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How AVAs and vineyard designations on labels increase your enjoyment of wines

Boots in dusty, ultra-fine grained sandy loam defining much of the Lodi AVA, making a direct impact on the sensory qualities of the region's wines.

Let’s start with two questions:

1. What is an AVA?
2. Why are AVAs important?

AVA stands for American Viticultural Area; a concept first established in 1980 by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, or ATF, to recognize places of origins of American wines, which appear on wine labels.

At that time, the ATF—an independent bureau within the United States Department of the Treasury—began receiving and handling petitions for AVAs from regional wine or grape growing organizations across the country. In January 2003, under the provisions of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, the ATF was reorganized and the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) was created to oversee the process of defining officially recognized American Viticultural Areas...

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