Wine labels will soon come with a whole lot more information though there are more important things in life as you will find out in the latest JollyCellarMaster weekly:
What’s in your bottle
Big changes are coming to the information you’ll find on the back of your bottle! Following the provisional agreement reached in Brussels on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), producers will have to list the amount of calories on wine labels by the end of next year.
Labels also have to come with a QR code that allows consumers to check the ingredients and any allergenic products. This aspect is a concession to winemakers from the different EU member states, which otherwise would have had to print the information in a number of languages depending on where it would have been sold leading to a bureaucratic and operational nightmare. The new rules also define the use of pictograms for mandatory indication of health warnings like the pregnant woman logo, ban on driving in a state of intoxication, or prohibition of consumption of minors.
By the way, a glass of wine has somewhere between 70 and 90 kcal though that obviously on the specific wine and its alcohol and sugar levels for a glass of 100 ml. So, if you choose a bigger serving that influences the number of calories, too…
The Godfather of Celebrity Wine Producers
Vineyards and wineries change hands all the time, I suppose, but the agreed sale of Coppola’s Sonoma County wineries to Delicato made the headlines this week if only for the fame of its owner, legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. We talked about celebrities and the wine businesses last week, but Coppola was among the first big names in the more recent history that turned to wine as a side project or as he himself put it in a statement: “What started as a dream to buy a family cottage in Napa Valley turned into a million+ case business producing iconic award-winning wines.“ Delicato had been busy building its portfolio and this is only the latest in a series of acquisitions making it the No. 5 supplier of U.S. wine overall.
Mind you though, we’re only talking about the Sonoma County wineries as well as Francis Ford Coppola Winery and Virginia Dare Winery brands, and Coppola will continue to own and run his other wine assets, Inglenook in Napa Valley and Domaine de Broglie Winery in Oregon.
Wine that gladdens the heart of man
„And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart.” Not my words, but those you’ll find in Psalm 104, but why the biblical quotes you ask? Well, continuing the thread of celebrity wine producers, other news this week confirmed that Pope Francis is going to have his own wine: Riccardo Cotarella, one of Italy’s most famous winemakers (we briefly talked about him in this podcast episode with Addison Rex), confirmed that he set up a vineyard for His Holiness at his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo. With the first harvest due in 2023, the wine will be ready for consumption in 2026. God bless.
Time to Fly
Leaving the famous men of wine for today, here is an inspiring story I came across on the Guardian this week about a man’s journey from home to detention to fulfilling a dream to an uncertain future. The kind of story movies are made from. It is about Farhad Bandesh, an Iranian Kurd, who was forced to flee his homeland in 2013 where he produced wine for his consumption in a country where alcohol production and consumption are banned since the revolution of 1979. After being detained in Australia for more than seven years, he found his way into the Australian wine industry in the Yarra Valley. He has just commercially produced his first own wines – a shiraz named Time to Fly as well as a Cabernet Sauvignon called Game Over after the Amnesty International campaign though it is far from certain that his wines will actually get bottled. Farhad’s visa is about to expire and his future in the country uncertain. Read the full story or follow him at @FarhadBandesh.
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That’s it for this week! If you have an interesting story, connect on Twitter and if you want to stay in the loop about things happening at the JollyCellarMaster and the world of wine, make sure you sign up to our newsletter. And if you want to come on the show and talk about wine, make sure you drop us a line.
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