The Desert Wine Guy - The Wine Label - A Sometimes Misleading Marketing Tool Designed To Induce A Purchase

  

   What information can you get from a wine label? Well, you can actually get a lot of useful information from a wine label if you pay attention and understand what it is you are reading. It is very easy for the consumer at times to be fooled into assuming or believing that what they are reading actually means something other then what it is. In a lot of cases the consumers assumptions might be very well incorrect. So, with that being said ,here we go wine lovers with another educational article that I myself found very interesting while doing the research, I think that you will find the stuff interesting as well as useful yourselves. By the way I am also not immune from reading or seeing what I want to see or read as I was recently fooled by a particular wine.
   When a Vineyard or wine producer designs a label for its bottle it has certain laws or regulations to adhere to because all wine labels must be approved by the Alcohol Tobacco and Trade Bureau. Let's use as our example the wine entitled "Angels Landing Napa". This is wine I have done a review on but have not yet posted. This is also the wine that brought this whole issue to mind and prompted me to write an article on this subject. I'll give you a little sneak peak into the article here by telling you that there is no "Angels Landing Napa" nor is there an Angels Landing Vineyard or Winery in Napa (end of preview:). So, what do you call this when you see advertising like this on a bottle of wine? I call it deceptive advertising. This wording gives the consumer a false belief that the Napa Valley had something to do with this wine when in actuality it might not have had anything to do with the wine at all. In keeping it real with you guys, yes when I bought this wine I assumed that I was buying a wine from the Napa Valley and now I feel taken. So with that being said, here is a rather short article on what the marketing deception of the wine label. Lets go ahead and break down some useless or vague terms that we might see on the wine bottle.

1) VINTED - The word actually means and stands for nothing. There is no legal definition that states how this word should be used or for that matter, what it means..

2) OLD VINE -  This term also means absolutely nothing. The term only infers that the vines are old but who is defining what "old" means especially if the words "Old Vine" on a bottle mean that I can charge another few dollars to what is really an ordinary wine then great for me as the seller.

3) RESERVE - The term only infers that the production of this wine has received special attention. Add another few dollars to the consumers cost of the wine and more profit in the producers pocket.

4) BOTTLED - This means that the company listed on the label didn’t make the wine, it just bottled it. As an example "bottled by ABC & Sons, Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa California" this might lead you to believe that the wine was grown in the Napa Valley but that would not be the case it just means that ABC & Sons put the wine in the bottle.

5) CELLARED BY -  Again put the name of a company on a wine bottle that is simply located in the Napa Valley and you have the consumer assuming pr believing with their Wallet that the wine is from grapes grown in Napa. All this means is what it says, the wine was kept in a Cellar in the Napa Valley. You will also see this term used concerning a company that doesn't own a Winery.

6) OAK AGED - Here is our last example of misleading words or phrases that we might see on a wine bottle. The first thing is, there are many different types of Oak that wine can be aged in and some are better then others. This phrase doesn't tell you the type of Oak nor if the Oak is new or old. The age of the oak determines how much impact it has on the wine that is soaking (or aging) in it.

6) LIMITED PRODUCTION - This simply means that someone made the wine in limited amounts. This says nothing else about the wine but may fool the consumer into thinking that the wine is something special. More profit for the producer for what may be sub-par wine.

   Well, now that I have gotten that out of my system I feel better. As I said when I started this little article, there is a lot on the wine label that is very useful to us the consumer but that is the subject for another day and another article. For now I will just leave you with this. When you are out buying wine be aware that the wine label as well as being informative is also used as a marketing tool and a very effective one at that. I hope you have all learned a little something about a small but important part of the wine industry, I know that I have.

                                                                                                                The Desert Wine Guy
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