We have become more aware of wine labels this season because of our taking a very interesting class at City College of San Francisco on the history of food and wine in France.
Wine Snobs and Pink Pigs
Dianne Boate and Robert Meyer
Published: November, 2005
We have become more aware of wine labels this season because of our taking a very interesting class at City College of San Francisco on the history of food and wine in France.
The French are very strict about their wine labels and rightly so, for wine is the principal money making product of France. The label is the guarantee of the quality, backed by laws regarding what that label says. This is to assure us all that the product is what is says it is, and we are getting our money’s worth.
Consider the history of the various wine regions in France. The distinct wine growing regions of France were founded and developed by the Romans. They formed the boundaries and scouted out all the good stuff early on. They are the same regions we know today as Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, and so on.
Today, there are four levels of wine classification from the most expensive to the least, but the ones we would be most familiar with are top of the line: AOC, appellation d’origine controlee, 40%; third down is Vin de Pays, (literally, wine of the country), 20%; Vin de Table, (table wine), 39%.
Exactly where the grapes are grown, exactly what grapes are grown, exactly what the degree of ripeness is when the grapes are picked, exactly how many vines in the planting area are some of the rules for the AOC labeling. Now you know why when you order a bottle of French wine in a restaurant with AOC on the label you pay a higher price — for highest quality. But we will always emphasize if you love wines of Vin de Pays more, then that is what you should drink.
Here is what Leon Adams said in his book, The Commonsense Book of Wine: "You are a connoisseur of wines when you have sampled enough of them to know which ones please you and which do not. You are a wine snob, on the other hand, if (a) you look for a wines faults instead of its virtues, if (b) you are influenced by a wine’s price instead of by its flavor, if (c) you turn up your nose at bottles that lack famous names or vintage dates, or in general, if you drink the label instead of the wine." Bravo!
To compare label laws of France and United States briefly, Dianne called on Mike Denny, whose local company, American Wine Distributor’s Inc., has a pertinent web page on the subject: http://www.drinksusa.com/labelingfaq.asp
What jumped out was two items of difference:
1. Sulfites must be declared 2. Government Warning must appear in letters of a certain size.
We then asked Mr. Denny: "Michael, do you think, and is it commonly known, that the government warnings are from new age prohibitionists?"
MD: "That’s part of it, but it’s more complicated than that. A lot has to do with a genuine, but misguided, feeling that people are stupid and need to be told everything. This is now showing up on the packaging of other products too, with ridiculous warnings like: don’t wash your baby’s hair with Clorox bleach or something like that. I can’t think of a real one right now, but there are plenty. There were also some liability issues mitigated for the industry, somewhat through their agreement to put the warning on there. Now, the liability lives mostly with the retailers/restaurants selling and serving it. It’s pretty tough for that liability to move upstream from there, unless there’s something bad in the bottle."
Now for a little fun.
In the good old days, we were involved with the San Francisco International Film Festival.
There was to be a special "in-person" event with actor Michael Palin, who was starring in a film about an illegal pig in England during WWII. A very last minute idea was to get some cases of wine with a special label that would tie in with the occasion. All fingers pointed to Dianne to make the artwork, she who had never done a label in her life.
The locale was the Palace of Fine Arts, so then, so was the logo for the festival. And since the subject of the film was a pig, Dianne opened a cookbook to the pork section, and found an image of a pig cut up into its various parts, but still, it was a whole pig. With some manipulation of the curves and a few dashes to fill in the lines… Voila! She had a drawing of a pig, which was pasted on top the Palace of Fine Arts logo, as if flying over it. For sly amusement, "some pig" (from E.B. White’s "Charlotte’s Web") appeared in small lettering in a clever place. At the last minute, the pig was made pink. Then, the peel back labels were printed, rushed to the site and pasted on the bottles. It was a fitting label for a fine evening. Later, this flying pig became the genesis for our own label called "Pig’s Leap," which flies gloriously over the Golden Gate Bridge on a glossy label
Dianne Boate is a freelance writer, photographer, hat designer and new drawing student. Her photos can be seen a www.danielakart.com. Robert Meyer is a consultant to the wine and spirits industry. Robert’s personal labels have included: "Vinicole Mey-yer," "Shaken but Not Stirred," and "Spirits Wrangler." With Dianne it’s "The Hat Lady," "The Cake Lady," and "The Unmarried Housewife."
