back label information

While you _might_ be able to fit "War and Peace" on a Bordeaux bottle, those slope shouldered, squat, fat Burgundy shaped bottles have rather limited vertical space. Less than 10cm for some of them.

Tom S

Unless you are the U.S. government. For them, the official front label is the one which contains all their requiried information such as winery name, appelation (if applicable,) alcohol content, varietal, and origin. So what often happens is that what we might consider to be the "back" label, the government calls the "front (brand)" label. Not very interesting, just trivia to share.

A few people mentioned wanting to know residual sugar levels. I think that while almost everyone would agree that they would like to know if the wine is sweet or not, many wouldn't know how to relate a residual sugar count to tell them that. How about if every wine carried the simple-talk distinction of "sweet white/red wine" or "dry white/red wine?" In cases of off-dry, it can then be mentioned in the notes about the wine. Then, for those that really want the nitty gritty, the numbers can be found easily elsewhere (say, on the website of the importer perhaps) Good compromise?

e.winemonger

I don't know, Dale..."cold maceration" is pretty sexy stuff. But yes, finding that balance between interesting information and frank selling language is certainly the trick.

How about if that tasting note source is the vintner? That's if, let's just say for the purpose of wild amusement, that we are talking about imported wines from Austria and we are sure that the translation is perfect. Perhaps if it comes from the horses mouth it might be interesting for novices and cork-dorks alike? e.winemonger (p.s. Those Ridge notes are really great. Wonder how many folks read them all the way through?)

Olivier Humbrecht (and I think some other Alsatian producers) have started doing a scale of "apparent sweetness" (since residual sugar isn't the only factor, acidity especially affects *perception* of sweetness). As ZH wines are all over the place in sweetness, I think I'll find that very helpful. Terry Thiese has a similar scale in his catalogs, though not on labels.

Dale

Dale Williams Drop "damnspam" to reply

So for 5 lines, that is 2cm height per line! That is what I call a BIG font. OK, you might want to include a bar code and other stuff, but even so...

I'm not advocating War and Peace, but I feel that if information is useful, space should be made for it.

When *I* said residual sugar, I personally meant an indication such as medium-dry or whatever. But putting a number on the residual sugar would not hurt either. It does not take up much space, and the more oftern such numbers are used the easier we can all relate to the numbers.

For me, yes. But not all wines have informative websites, and not all drinkers have easy web access.

Here's a suggestion: give each of your wines a specific and permantent URL, rather than just the URL for the producer/importer.

Not even the vendor? But I'd like to see that too, myself :-) Anders

The front label tells me the following

--appellation (or just "central coast". That's okay by me.

--vineyard

--varietal (maybe)

--percent alcohol

--for residual sugar: sec, demi sec, brut, extra brut. And with German wines, well you get it.

Front label works for me.

Rich R.

Actually, I think we're going to do you one better there. But you'll have to wait and see. Hopefully it will be a good answer to a lot of these great suggestions.

May I ask who "you" are in this context? Go on... give us a clue. I know there was talk of an Italian scheme to use the Web to identify bottle batches.

This business of assigning URLs to wines is one of my pet topics - as any friend who shows the slightest hint of interest in the subject can witness :-) I think wine info (maybe on a batch basis) should be provided as XML (RDF probably) assesable via HTTP URLS.

The most simple solution would be to stick to already existing sweetness brackets defined by EU law in grams per liter (10 g/l of residual sugar corresponding to 1%):

*) Normally 4 g/l is the limit, but in Germany and Austria the "dry" bracket is extended to 9 g/l depending on acidity level.

Every bottle of wine bottled or sold in Austria has to carry one of these four designations. And it would be one of these mentions I would like to see on the labels.

M.

The problem I'm referring to quite obviously is linked to restaurants - not to wine shops.

M.

The last two notions refer to sparkling wine, not to still table wine.

M.

I forgot to add what I'd REALLY like to see on back label- a temperature sensor. The technology (a spot that changes color if temp goes above a certain point) has been around for a while. I did hear some super-super-premium Spanish wine is putting them on. Dale

Dale Williams Drop "damnspam" to reply

That's what I was assuming, actually. A back label quoting the importer is, frankly, far less interesting and persuasive than one that quotes the vintner.

I can only speak for myself, but I use those notes to help quide my decision about the wine's ageworthiness.

Price reduced 50%

-- ================================================Do you like wine? Do you live in South Florida? Visit the MIAMI WINE TASTERS group at