What's in my wine? asks Brits.
Although no one claim this a “secret” in the wine industry, there’s more behind the making of good quality, clear wines than simply crushing the grapes and waiting for wild yeasts to finish the business. There’s the additional step of including additives to wine to properly finish it off, in some case, to add more flavor to the wine.
“Among the additives which can be added without listing are clay, acid, artificial yeasts, enzymes, sugar, gelatin, and charcoal. Eggs and a milk protein called casein can also be used, while another permitted additive is the fish bladder extract, isinglass,” says the European Union.
And this “problem” is also occuring in the U.S., making the finalization of what to include (and not include) on wine labels just one more problem that the Alcohol Tobacco Tax And Trade Bureau (TTB) will have to contend with.
Malcolm Gluck, the wine critic and author of The Great Wine Swindle, has campaigned on the issue of including additives to be listed on wine bottles in Britain, and with globalization taking hold in the wine industry, it’s to be expected that this will become an issue on this side of the pond too.
“This is a very good move,” says Gluck. “The wine industry insists on this romantic notion that wine is just crushed grapes and it continues to peddle this line, in a subliminal way and sometimes quite overtly.”
Wine producers argue that many of the additives are actually substances that the wine passes through or that are removed from wine prior to bottling. But John Corbet-Milward, from the Wine and Spirit Trade Association, goes right to the biggest issue, the one that has not only smaller-sized vinteners, but also brewers complaining of…additional costs. “This variance and the need to translate materials into 27 languages means precise labelling for wine covering full ingredients is estimated at one billion Euros over three years. This cost would have to be borne by consumers or by producers. The reality is that many smaller producers would stop selling products in smaller markets. Consumer choice would be diminished.”
But in the filtering process, can anyone assure consumers that all additives are removed? These substances below are all approved by EU authorities for use in the production of wine. Some of them are used in the winemaking process but are not found in the finished product:
tartaric acid
calcium tartrate
betaglucanase
lactic bacteria
ion exchange resins
potassium ferrocyanide
calcium phytate
lysozyme
dimethyldicarbonate
urease
oxygen
lees
oak wood
sulphur dioxide
calcium sulphate
sucrose
yeast cell walls
carbon dioxide
ascorbic acid
citric acid
copper sulphate
charcoal
diammonium phosphate
ammonium sulphate
ammonium sulphite
ammonium bisulphite
thiamine hydrochloride
polyvinylpolypyrrolidone
calcium tartrate
calcium phytate
lysozyme
dimethyldicarbonate
argon
nitrogen
potassium bisulphite
potassium metabisulphite
gelatin
plant proteins
isinglass
casein
potassium caseinate
ovalbumin (egg white)
lactalbumin,
bentonite
silicon dioxide or colloidal solution
kaolin
tannin
pectinolytic enzymes,
sorbic acid or potassium sorbate
potassium tartrate
potassium bicarbonate
calcium carbonate
carbon dioxide
acacia (gum arabic)
calcium alginate
potassium alginate
allyl isothiocyanate
yeast mannoproteins
MORE HERE
To paraphrase an old expression, “You need a score card” just to keep up with what might be on the labels of your favorite bottles of wine.