Allergies and Wine

Filed in archive Wine News on August 3, 2006

Having allergies of any kind, well, it sucks. I regularly suffer from allergies, which seem to be triggers mainly by things like dust, perfumes, pretty much anything in the air. I joke that I'm allergic to oxygen.

Luckily, I don't have any food allergies. Those who do have to really be careful, though, because a lot of food related items - including wine - can have exposure to foods you wouldn't expect such as eggs and fish.

To help people with these food related allergies, there is a movement in the wine industry to encourage labeling policies to change so that a warning is added to the label if it has any exposure to potential allergens.

Here's more on this issue from the Monterey Herald:

For the first time, officials are permitting wineries to voluntarily declare the presence of potential allergens such as milk or eggs. Intriguingly, an industry often leery of new labeling schemes is accepting the new voluntary standards.

''Not all wines have these ingredients,'' said Gladys Horiuchi, spokeswoman for the San Francisco-based Wine Institute.

''It's not something all wineries do, so it can be done on a voluntary basis.''
Mandatory labels, on the other hand, can be harder for wineries to swallow, depending on what's required.

Herein lies the latest, hybrid regulatory harvest from the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.

The Treasury Department agency has spelled out one voluntary and one mandatory approach to allergen labeling.

The voluntary labeling can begin immediately.