Wine labels will have to provide more information in the future. (Symbolic photo)
Source: dpa
Calories, fat, sugar: The new nutritional labels for wine apply to the 2024 vintage and therefore, according to experts, also to Federweißer. This is being read these days. In 2025, consumers will find the labels more and more frequently on wine bottles in stores.
This is a change for the industry: many winegrowers are now intensively dealing with this before producing the new vintage and still have many questions, reports the Secretary General of the German Winegrowers’ Association, Christian Schwörer.
EU law requires more information
The background to this is a change in EU law that also requires nutritional information for wine. The calorific value and any allergens such as sulphites must be on the label in any case, says Ernst Büscher from the German Wine Institute in Bodenheim in Rheinhessen.
The other nutritional values and the list of ingredients could alternatively be accessed using a QR code – as is the case with sparkling wine, where the industry says it has had mostly positive experiences with it. The code on the label leads to a website where the data is stored.
Federweiße is the first wine to be mentioned. “Federweißer has a special nutritional value because it is sold in an unfermented or partially fermented state,” says Büscher. The nutritional values refer to the time before fermentation begins, while the alcohol content is the maximum value that would be achieved after complete fermentation.
Premium wineries see little added value
Many winemakers in the Association of German Prädikat Wine Estates (VDP) do not see any added value of the labels for consumers. The nutritional information for dry white wines in particular is so similar that it is hardly worth listing the wines individually, says Max Rieser of the VDP, describing the mood in the association. And many said: “Apart from sulphites, there is nothing in our wine anyway and that should have been stated on the label beforehand.” Added to this are higher costs and criticism of the appearance of the labels.
However, the QR code solution is met with approval because it saves space on the label. Some companies already have such codes on their bottles, says Rieser.
The EU-wide introduction also has advantages, says Alexander Tacer, managing director of the Association of German Sparkling Wine Cellars and the Federal Association of Wine and Spirits International. “The information can be conveniently displayed via the QR code in the respective national language of the target market, without overloading the physical label with text.”
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Source: dpa
2024-08-21 15:23:27