For The Love Of Port

Keep your laws off my labels!

http://www.winespectator.com/webfeature/show/id/44158

I'm glad they are looking into this as some people have really stretched the "truth" of what is on their labels, to the point of being confusing at the very least. It really is the producers themselves that have shot themselves in the foot, which has brought this issue to the fore. The bad thing is, the TTB usually goes too far once they set their minds to changing a regulation.

I think it would be great to have some rigidity around some of those terms. I assume it is a bigger problem in the new world rather than the old world.
It would be nice if there was worldwide agreement on it. I think "Estate" is pretty self explanatory, But I understand that 100% estate may be restrictive to spaller growers. I'm a bit emarrassed to say I don't actually know whether there is Australian legislation around that term, but I think a sensible approach would be to do what we do for some of the other claims on the label. It is known as the 85% rule. 85% has to be from the grape(s) specified, 85% has to be from the region specified and 85% has to be from the year specified (this one seldom comes into play) athough The term that annoys me the most is the use of the word Reserve. I'd consider it the most abused term in Australian winemkaing.
While we at it, it would be good if we could keep the marketing people away from the back of the label too. I've seen some absolute BS on the back of wine labels.

"Single vineyard," "Estate grown," "Old vines," "Reserve" I could see how these terms could be abused to fool the public into buying something that isn't what they think it is. I don't think I've personally been taken in by these terms, but I admit to noticing and paying attention to them. Well, I have bought "reserve" bottlings by preference to those by the producer lacking this distinction, so I may have been moved to that limited extent. On the other hand, I've generally found the reserve offerings by a particular producer are better than their substantially similar wine lacking the reserve characterization. Thus, while undefined and maybe not being useful choosing between different producers, it may be useful in its present form to distinguish between the bottlings of a particular producer. I guess in the long run you are going to get what you pay for, and if you think you are getting a steal on your "old vines" Zinfandel . . . you might simply be paying the standard price for a wine with 5% of the juice coming from 50 year old vines and 95% coming from 7 year old vines.

More laws, red tape and BS. Producers should have a "hand shake" agreement what many of these terms mean and imply.

"Reserve" has a useful meaning, but I readily accept that one vintner's reserve is another's $#%@! I don't see how you can regulate that term. For that matter, given different tastes, who is to say which tastes better.

"Old Vines" is another term that I really take with a grain of salt. See above.

Maybe the estate stuff can be regulated, but I'm not all that bothered with the status quo.