Wine Labeling; The MacNeil/Lehrer Report

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening from San Francisco. Next week the federal government will hold hearings here, near the heart of the American wine industry, on proposed new regulations governing how wine is labeled. That may seem to you a rather esoteric activity for government bureaucrats to be involved in, but it isn`t so esoteric. Last year, for the first time, Americans drank more wine than they did distilled alcohol. This year wine may surpass distilled spirits. Wine consumption has nearly doubled in ten years: 191 million gallons -that`s nearly a gallon per person -- in 1966; 376 million gallons, or nearly two gallons a person, last year, 1976. It`s true that we still drink nearly ten times as much beer as wine, more milk than beer, and more soft drinks than anything else except water. But the United States is now the world`s sixth largest wine producer, and becoming very competitive in quality. So what American winemakers put on their labels is important, not only for consumers here but to help American wine stand up to its famous rivals.

Tonight, the labeling mysteries behind that wine that James Thurber made famous -- the little domestic burgundy with no breeding, but amusing pretensions. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, the production of wine also is spreading around the country. Eighty-five percent of the wine produced in the United States still comes from California, half of the rest from New York State. But thirty-two other states have some kind of winegrowing under way; commercial production is done in twenty of them. American wine production is regulated by the Treasury Department`s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. It determines what must go and what must not go on a wine bottle`s label. The question is how to read those labels and know what you are reading. Bob Levine is with us to give us a short course on label reading. Mr. Levine is President of the recently formed Society of Wine Educators. He`s lectured before consumer groups on wine for the past ten years.

Mr. Levine, let`s look at some labels here, beginning at the cheaper level and working up. The first one is Gallo`s Burgundy of California. What does that tell us?

ROBERT LEVINE: The label simply tells you that it`s a red wine from California, made in what the winemaker would think of as a burgundy style, which would be sort of a big, not-too-dry red wine.

LEHRER: All right. Emerald Dry, Paul Masson.

LEVINE: The label tells you nothing except that it`s a white table wine. Your eye can see through the bottle and tell you that it`s white, and unless you happened to have that wine before you`d have no idea what was in the bottle.

LEHRER:" Emerald Dry" is a brand name, then.

LEVINE: It`s a proprietor name -- a proprietary name, I should say.

LEHRER: I see. Sebastiani`s Cabernet Sauvignon. Now, with those other two that we just saw, there was no way to tell from there what particular grape was used in their wine, but now with this one we do, right?

LEVINE: Yes. Cabernet sauvignon is a rather dry red wine, made in the style of a French medoc. The fact that it says "North Coast Counties" means that the grapes -- at least, those that are cabernet sauvignon in the bottle -- come from somewhere, generally, around San Francisco and north and that they are drier and perhaps a little more austere and a finer quality than other wines having the same name from the southern part of California.

LEHRER: All right, here`s another cabernet sauvignon, it`s a Beaulieu. Now, let me ask you on this one and also on the other one. Does that mean that all of the wine in that bottle came from that kind of grape?

LEVINE: No. As a matter of fact, by law it means that only fifty one percent of the wine came from the grape, and as a matter of fact I don`t think that hardly any winemaker puts a hundred percent cabernet sauvignon in the bottle because it gets to be too hard, or too harsh. They generally soften it, as they do in other parts of the world, with other grapes.

LEHRER: All right. But we do have some additional information on this one. Estate bottled...

LEVINE: There was the year on the neck label and it also says "estate bottled," which means that we know now that the grapes came from vineyards either owned by or controlled by Beaulieu. And that generally means a higher quality wine, but not necessarily.

LEHRER: All right, here`s a Mirassou Zinfandel. Zinfandel is also another type of grape.

LEVINE: It`s a varietal grape, another red grape, tends to be somewhat more fruity than the cabernet.

LEHRER: Now look up here, it says "Limited" and it`s numbered.

LEVINE: That`s the bottle number of 7832 out of 15,000 harvest selection, which means that the grapes were fully ripened, or I should say perhaps ripened longer than they would have been, and the implication at least is that this wine will be bigger and better than the normal zinfandel made by Mirassou.

LEHRER: That one cost $5.39. Now here`s one that cost $6.25, and it`s called, I think, a special care wine -- the word "unfiltered" up here.

LEVINE: That`s right. You have to have some esoteric knowledge about the way wine is made and what filtering does or does not do to a wine. In most inexpensive wines they`re filtered in order to get rid of bacteria and yeast and other things. Unfortunately, it also gets rid of a good deal of the flavor. When you don`t filter a wine, what you`re implying on the label at least is that you`re attempting to make it in a traditional style and to bring out the very best that is in that particular grape, which happens to be the sauvignon blanc. Fumg blanc is a name that Mondavi gives to their dry sauvignon blanc, their better dry sauvignon blanc wine.

LEHRER: All right. Let me ask you now for the non-wine connoisseur: we`ve gone through what information is on at least these six bottles; how would you rate the labeling system? Is that enough information?

LEVINE: I think it`s terrible. One of the toughest things that I have in my lectures in my class is to explain to people how to go into their local wine store and buy a bottle of wine and know specifically what`s in the bottle. I think that the simplest thing that could be done is to simply put on the label what is in the bottle. If it is cabernet sauvignon and zinfandel and it`s in the ratio of two to one, put that on the label.

LEHRER: That`s what we want to pursue now. Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Yes. What the Bureau has proposed in its new regulations is that to call itself a varietal wine by one grape or another there must be seventy-five percent of the grapes of that kind in the wine at least instead of fifty-one percent at present. The major wine industry organization in this country is the Wine Institute of California, which represents ninety percent of the wine industry. The President of the Institute is John DeLuca, a former professor of international relations and former Deputy Mayor of San Francisco. Mr. DeLuca, does the wine industry, as represented at least by your organization, support, the seventy-five percent proposal?

JOHN DeLUCA: Mr. MacNeil, we`re proud to say that that is our proposal. The BATF in its current hearings has in effect adopted the recommendation that we made earlier in the year, that the minimum at the federal level be raised from fifty-one to seventy-five percent. We are not defensive about the quality of wine that we have made under the present regulations, but we think that our capabilities, our vineyards, our technology, the awareness of the consumer and our awareness now permit us to raise that to seventy- five and still give us the flexibility we think our winemakers deserve.

MacNEIL: But there are some exceptions to this new regulation, are there? Some wines will still be allowed to have only fifty-one percent of the named grape in them. Why is that, and which ones are they?

DeLUCA: After the testimony of the February-March hearings, the government has adopted a proposal that would exempt certain wines, particularly the labrusca grapes and the scuppernong grapes.

MacNEIL: Those are the grapes that are commonly grown in New York State, for instance.

DeLUCA: Yes, that`s correct. And I think that`s a recognition of the testimony given there, that the concentration of the grape would not permit them to go to seventy-five. What we`re all after is better quality, and sometimes a preoccupation with numbers takes away from it.

MacNEIL: But isn`t it still going to be rather deceptive for the consumers, such as Mr. Levine was just talking about; if New York wine is mixed with a large quantity of California wine to cut the taste of that particular kind of grape, that purchasers are still going to think they`re getting something they`re not?

DeLUCA: I do not wish, and obviously am not in a position, to speak on behalf of the eastern wineries. But I think we should underscore that there is no desired deception, this is the evolution of our industry. We are an infant industry on both sides of the continent, and we`re trying to, again throughout, achieve the best quality that we can.

MacNEIL: Does your institute believe that the actual percentage of the individual grapes that go into a mix should be on the label?

DeLUCA: Our judgment is that it should be voluntary for various vintners and various wine enthusiasts who seek it out, but that it would be misleading to the consuming public at large to give the impression that the higher the percentage, the better the wine -- which is not necessarily so. So we are going to testify that this should be on a voluntary, not a mandated, basis.

Before I finish, may I correct what I believe is an inadvertent misimpression left by Bob Levine and the Washington interviews? The implication was that the inexpensive wines are cheaper. There are many of our wineries that I believe -- and their consumer appeal testifies to it - are making fine wines. Their efficiency, their ability to handle their vineyards permits them to sell the wines at less price, but I would hope that that would not be the impression left with the viewers.

MacNEIL: I understood them to mean "cheaper," meaning cost less.

DeLUCA: Fine. I would like that to be the impression.

MacNEIL: Yes. Is that what you meant, Jim?

LEHRER: It certainly was, I can verify that. Strictly the cost.

MacNEIL: Okay. I just wanted to ask you one more question, Mr. DeLuca. It seems to me there are really kind of two wine industries in the country: one is large producers who blend a lot of different grapes in order to produce a product which will always taste reliably the same, wherever it comes from and wherever it`s sold and whatever year it`s made - - kind of like Coke always tastes the same, or something like that--and another group of smaller or larger producers who want their wine identified by its distinctive taste by different years and different regions. Now, are the interests of both served by this new regulation about changing the percentage of the varietal grape?

DeLUCA: You`ve hinted at an important concept -- namely, that there are different consuming publics. And rather than talk about different rules what we basically emphasize in the United States is first the winemaker and the brand, then the varietal, and then the geography, which is quite different from other regions in the world. And we are trying to appeal to different tastes, and as a consequence some wineries want consistency by blending and some wineries wish to emphasize that particular year or that particular harvest. But we should recognize in the United States that there is more than one consuming public, and these label hearings I think would be well served if we took that into account.

MacNEIL: Thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Most of the wine produced in this country does come from large wineries but small estate bottlers are now trying to compete, and one such winemaker is Mark Miller, who owns the Benmarl Vineyards in the Hudson Valley of New York State. An illustrator by trade, he`s spent the past twenty years developing his wine business. And this is your brand, right, Mr. Miller, Benmarl?

MARK MILLER: That`s correct.

LEHRER: Mr. Miller, what do you think of the seventy-five percent requirement?

MILLER: Well, as a small winery operator, we realize that the bulk of the business, the bulk of the industry, -- although I really don`t care for that word in connection with an art form, which I feel winemaking to be -- we really would prefer to see absolute accuracy in wine labeling. I think that to permit a name to go on a label which represents only seventy-five percent of the named ingredient is probably something we`re going to have to accept in order to accommodate a growing industry. As small wine producers, we would prefer to have it say one hundred percent.

LEHRER: You mean, if they don`t have one hundred percent zinfandel grapes in it then it can`t use that label, is that it?

MILLER: Give or take five percent for absolute lack of perfect control.

LEHRER: What is your view of the current labeling of American wine? Do you agree with Mr. Levine that it is inadequate, that the consumer does not have enough information to make a decision on which wine to buy?

MILLER: Yes, I do. Basically I do. I think that we must improve our labeling regulations. It`s an extremely difficult thing to accomplish, though, because we want to tell the truth but we really, I don`t think, necessarily want to provide a lot of information which is not useful to the wine consumer or that`s beside the point.

LEHRER: Okay. From your point of view, what is the useful information? What should a consumer be told on a label? What`s the most important thing he should know?

MILLER: From my point of view, the region -- the place it comes from is perhaps the most important thing.

LEHRER: Region in the broadest sense, like California or New York, or in even a more narrow sense, like Napa Valley, the Hudson Valley?

MILLER: To me, I think it`s most important to say that this is a wine made on a particular piece of property by a particular winemaker, although that may be simply applied, in a certain region where the climate conditions are generally known, where all of the factors that go into the growing of the grape and the making of that wine can be related to as much natural phenomena as possible.

LEHRER: Do you think that should apply, say, even to the first wine that Mr. Levine and I went through, a label like Gallo, which just said California Burgundy? What you think is that that label and all other labels should say what part of California, is that right, or what particular vineyard those grapes came from?

MILLER: Only if it`s relevant. I simply think that...

LEHRER: But you said that you thought that that was relevant, that...

MILLER:I think it`s relevant if it means anything in connection with the wine that we`re talking about. I believe that whatever is on the bottle should be required to be absolutely accurate. If Gallo doesn`t consider that to be relevant information about that wine and that the consumer doesn`t need to know it in order to enjoy it, I agree with it.

LEHRER: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: That brings us to another change that the government is proposing. It is proposing that the use of the words "estate bottled" be banned after the beginning of 1983 and a new system substituted for that in which localities in which wine is grown, down to actual vineyards and counties, will be identified and registered as trade-known winegrowing areas. In New York State there is just a handful of premium winemakers, but in California that part of the industry is in full swing. Ken Kwit is Chairman of the Board of Sonoma Vineyards in Sonoma County, north of here, and his bottles carry the words "estate bottled."

Mr. Kwit, how does a vineyard your size feel about the proposed ban on those words "estate bottled" after 1983?

KEN KWIT: Well, frankly, we`re quite surprised by the BATF`s position on estate bottling. We believe, as a company representing that portion of the industry you spoke about earlier that specializes and indeed sells only vintage products and indeed relies primarily on grapes grown on our own lands, that estate bottled concept is probably the most single important designation for wine that Europe, and indeed this country, has known.

MacNEIL: In your end of the market, the words "estate bottled" are useful to you in your marketing.

KWIT: They`re useful in the market. I think that the BATF has overreacted in overkill to a fairly ill-defined or undefined utilization of the term in the past. The Wine Institute, and here the both large and smaller wineries have come together on a very important issue, have proposed a criteria which would be known as estate produced and bottled, which would require that ninety-five percent of the grapes going into a wine so designated were not only grown on lands owned and managed by the vineyard in question but also fermented, aged and bottled by the winery.

MacNEIL: Let`s get at what this actually means. Right now the words "estate bottled," are they any guarantee of quality?

KWIT: They in and of themselves are not necessarily a guarantee of quality, principally because the limitation of a viticultural area has not been defined under existing law. In addition, there is no requirement under existing law that the winery in question actually own all the vineyards in question. We believe, and the Wine Institute has proposed, that if the definition is much restricted, requiring both ownership and management within a very specified, limited geographical area having viticultural significance, that the terminology of "estate produced and bottled" will come to have great significance to the wine consumer.

MacNEIL: But aren`t you going to get this from the government`s proposal, that winegrowing areas, whether they are regions or counties or valleys or down to little parishes or actual vineyards, when they are registered aren`t you going to achieve the same result?

KWIT: No, we think not. We believe in the industry that the concept of ownership and management of vineyards, number one, by the producing winery is an important one. That is to say, under the government`s proposal of controlled appellation the requirement of ownership and management of those grapes is not inherent in the proposal. We believe that it is very important that the producing winery actually supervise the viticultural practices. In addition, the terminology of controlled appellation we believe will connote and signify to the American consumer a stamp of governmental approval. We believe that the American consumer, as exemplified by the California wine consumer, who has grown to understand the estate bottling concept and will benefit by a much stricter definition, will have a much more finite understanding and control over the grapes being put into the bottle.

MacNEIL: Let me ask you both this: here in California and interested in the California side of the industry, why is it necessary for this country, the United States, to have two systems of identifying wine when most other countries, like France for instance, just have one? Here, as we`ve discussed already, Americans define wines or identify wines by the kind of grapes that go into them -- you call it "varietal" -- and now we`re talking about identifying wines by where they`re grown -- which estate or which region they`re grown in. Why do we have to have two systems?

DeLUCA: I think, again, you get to the essence of this country. The United States is not Europe; the United States -- California, the other regions -- are not France, Italy and Germany. We are evolving our own system. When it comes to our contribution to the world of wine, most attention is focused on our varietal development. And it is true that we also have generic. Above all, we have had the emphasis on the winemaker and the brand. I have to take a little different position than was spoken before by Mr. Miller about the emphasis on the region. In a state like California the emphasis has been on the winemaker, and the region has come really after the brand and the varietal.

MacNEIL: So first of all, a guy going into a shop traditionally looked for the name of his trusty old winemaker, and then afterward he worried about the kind of grapes, and after that, where it was grown.

KWIT: What we`re saying, of course, Robin, is that because of the growing conditions in California, which allow the maintenance and development of good cabernet, for instance, stretching over a three- or four hundred-mile area, that that isn`t important. The cabernet has become the first or second line of designation. But in addition the smaller, premium wineries are saying that the designated area is an additional important piece of information.

MacNEIL: Okay, thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Mr. Levine, help me sort this out now from a consumer`s standpoint. "Estate bottled" -- when is that important from a consumer`s standpoint, as apart from the industry`s standpoint?

LEVINE: As it is presently practiced?

LEHRER: Yes, and then under the proposal.

LEVINE: As it`s presently practiced it may or may not mean something. On Mark Miller`s labels or on Sonoma`s labels it means a great deal, but it doesn`t necessarily mean anything because there`s no guarantee that the wines produced under a so-called "estate bottled" carne from anywhere near where you might have thought they came from, but simply that they are contracted from.

LEHRER: In other words, you`ve got to know something about that particular estate, the quality of wine that comes from that estate and whether it doesn`t mean anything, right?

LEVINE: That`s correct.

LEHRER: All right. So it`s not necessarily a guarantee of quality.

LEVINE: Not at all. Not as it is now, although under the new proposals it would certainly be a lot better guarantee than it is now.

LEHRER: You think the new proposals would be better, then.

LEVINE: I think in that degree I do, yes.

LEHRER: All right. What about Mr. DeLuca`s point that to put on a label the percentage of the types of grapes that were used in that particular bottle could be misleading in terms of quality?

LEVINE: I think that John and I have a small difference of opinion here. I respect his position as head of the Wine Institute, but I think that the more you tell a consumer about what he is buying the better off you are. And I have the utmost regard for the people who go into a wine store and buy wine, and I don`t think that putting things on the label, as long as they are not deceptive, will confuse them or do anything other than improve the knowledge of what`s in the label.

LEHRER: But Mr. Miller`s point -- and we were speaking specifically of the Gallo wine; it could have been any wine -- Gallo makes the decision what`s relevant, Mr. Miller makes the decision what`s relevant, Sonoma makes the decision as to what`s relevant.

LEVINE: But you see, you`re in a trap there. Then you must know what the decision about what is relevant made by every single winery in the whole United States. And I don`t think most consumers are prepared to do that sort of research in trying to buy wine.

LEHRER: So there should be a standard, in other words.

LEVINE: I think there should be a standard, and I think that if I want to buy wine that tastes essentially like a cabernet sauvignon or a chardonnay, I think that I should be able to go in and look at a label on a bottle and know that I am essentially going to get something that tastes like a chardonnay or a cabernet sauvignon and not necessarily have to know that Gallo or Mark Miller had that particular opinion too.

LEHRER: Does that give you any problems, Mr. Miller?

MILLER: No. The more accurate the label is, the happier I`m going to be. And I`m sure that Bob couldn`t ask anything of a label that I wouldn`t be eager to put on there. The identification by varietal I feel perhaps has a fairly short-term value...

LEHRER: "Varietal" meaning the percentage of the...

LEVINE: No, the name of the grape.

LEHRER: Right.

MILLER: Because at the present time it`s a very good handle for identifying a wine. But as time goes on it might get to the point where the percentage of a number of different varietals would be so nearly equal that you`d have to have a label this long in order to identify all of the grapes that are in the bottle.

LEVINE: Yes, but let`s not get into the trap of saying that we have to put every tiny little component on the label. We`re talking about simply putting on the label what is significant to the consumer in terms of what it`s going to taste like; therefore, we`re talking about components of five or ten percent.

LEHRER: Gentlemen, Robin has a final question. Robin?

MacNEIL: Yes, I was just wondering what is financially at stake in these proposed regulations, what amounts of money earned by whom could they affect. Mr. DeLuca, does it make any difference?

DeLUCA: Yes, it does. Behind all these label proposals are vineyards and contracts and grape supplies. This is why we believe that there is good news ahead for everybody. There are going to be higher standards; the government, the consumer, the industry is at a stage where it is providing higher standards for the consumer, but at the same time the economic impact requires that we have a transition phase, which we are recommending so that we could avoid great dislocation.

MacNEIL: Mr. Kwit, are the interests of the small or medium-sized grower as well served by the new regulations?

KWIT: I think they are, Robin. I think your question underscores the fact that while we have characterized this dialogue as a labeling controversy, in point of fact what we`re really talking about is what goes in the bottle. Whether it`s seventy-five percent varietal content, whether it is a restrictive and very limiting estate concept, we are all talking about things which are going into the bottle, not just what`s stated on the bottle; and what goes in the bottle of course is a matter of dollars and cents. From the small and premium winery standpoint it obviously is more costly to establish these standards, but we think that together with the larger wineries that the American consumer will benefit from the standards that are being proposed.

MacNEIL: Mr. Levine, what is your estimate of the amount of money that`s affected by these things?

LEVINE: I`m not sure that I understand the thrust of your question, Robin.

MacNEIL: I`m wondering, does it affect the economic health of the industry whether these regulations go one way or another.

LEVINE: Oh, I have an impression that it affects them a great deal.

LEHRER: And with that we have to go. Gentlemen and Robin in California, thank you; gentlemen here in Washington. Robert MacNeil and I will be back tomorrow night. I`m Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.