What a Wine Label Won’t Tell You

Food & Wine

In the March 2015 issue of Food & Wine magazine, Megan Krigbaum writes about wine labels and interviews Paul Draper.

Even as food-labeling laws become more stringent, winemakers face no legal requirements to reveal the ingredients in each bottle. Paul Draper, winemaker at California’s Ridge Vineyards, thinks that’s a problem. “My hope is that labeling would encourage winemakers to use fewer additives and do less processing, just because they wouldn’t wnt to have a lengthy list of their label,” he says. Draper unabashedly reveals the ingredients in his wines, from the “hand-harvested, sustainably grown grapes” to the calcium carbonate he had to use when acidity was too high in his Cab — even the 1.4 percent water he added to one vintage of Zinfandel that he thought was a touch too ripe.

To read the full article, look for the March 2015 issue on newsstands right now.