By Michael Kaiser This past weekend, the fourth annual Wine Bloggers Conference was held at the Omni Hotel in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was a great opportunity for wine bloggers and others in the industry to really be introduced to the wonderful world of Virginia wine. Virginia wineries really delivered and they illustrated why the state … Read more

July 5, 2011 Division of Dockets Management (HFA-305) Food and Drug Administration 5630 Fishers Lane, Rm. 1061 Rockville, MD 20852 Re: Food Labeling; Nutrition Labeling of Standard Menu Items in Restaurants and Similar Retail Food Establishments (Docket No. FDA-2011-F-0172, and RIN 0910-AG57) (76 Fed. Reg. 19192 (April 6, 2011)) Dear Sir or Madam: On behalf … Read more

By Cary M. Greene This past weekend, the New York Times published an article Congress’s Man of the Vines, Including His Own on one our industries biggest advocates, Congressman Mike Thompson (D-CA). The portrait of Congressman Thompson painted by the Times was wholly unfair. As a representative of wineries in nearly every state, WineAmerica knows … Read more

The TTB has issued a lengthy update to clarify the rules for American grape varieties on wine labels. The following is taken from the TTB website and can be found here: http://www.ttb.gov/wine/grape-varieties.shtml If you have any questions please contact Michael Kaiser at: mkaiser@wineamerica.org.

The Alcohol Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau have released an updated version of the Certificate of Label Approval Form (TTB F 5100.31). The new form now requests a listing of any grape varietals that are displayed on the label. Additionally, all pre-COLA evaluations should now be noted in the data field marked “Formulas”. The TTB … Read more