By: Milos Pesic
There are a lot of wines available in the market. To know more about any of these varieties, brands and classes of wine, you should read the wine label.
A wine label offers the first clues about a certain wine. People usually do not have a chance to taste the wine before buying it, so the wine label will provide answers to many questions about the wine. It will tell people what variety of grapes it is made from, what vintage it is or what winery produced it.
However, much like a book, one should not judge the quality of the wine by an eye-catching label. True, the graphics, pictures and attractive text of some labels can be deceiving and indeed seem to give the bottle a personality. Therefore, it is best to read the contents of the label rather than choose the wines according to the looks of the bottle or label.
In many parts of the world, wineries must submit their labels to a government agency. This is to ensure that the wine meets important legal requirements.
The wine label should contain some basic but essential information. First, the label should state the company that makes the wine. That’s because the quality of the wine largely depends on the reputation of the winery making it. The highest quality wines have labels that have the words “grown, produced and bottled by” followed by the name of the winery.
The wine label should also include what kind of wine is in the bottle. This is done by checking the name of the grape variety that appears on the label. It would mean that the wine is mainly made from that kind of grape. If two or more grape varieties are present in the label, that wine is a blend of those grapes. Old World wines usually do not list wine varieties. What is contained in their labels is their appellation of origin.
The vintage date is also an important element of the wine label. It tells the person what year the grapes used to make the wine is harvested. No vintage means that the wine is from mixed vintages.
The wine label should also include the wine’s alcohol content. This is stated as a percentage by volume. The higher the percentage of alcohol, the stronger the wine is.
Lastly, the wine label should indicate how much wine is in the bottle. This quantity is given in milliliters. Usually, a standard bottle has 750 ml of wine in it. A magnum, on the other hand, has 1,500 ml.
Read the label of a wine bottle to get more information about the wine.
