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Warning labels similar to those on cigarette packets may become obligatory for wine bottles in the European Union in the coming years. This was pointed out by experts of the British Areni wine think tank at an online conference. According to them, the organisation is intensively following the EU's and the OIV's approach to this topic. Thus, as early as from 2022, the information about calories and additives like tartaric acid would become obligatory in Europe. Currently, the World Health Organisation (WHO) would increasingly focus its work on reducing alcohol consumption. It is calling for a label to be affixed with the words: "Wine kills".
The secretary general of the Comité Européen des Entreprises Vins (CEEV), Ignacio Sanchez Recarte, stressed that the drastic warning label would be enforced according to current estimates. "Not in two or three years, but it will come," he said, adding that the wine industry was too busy with itself. "For ten years there has been the debate why wine should be exempt from nutritional claims, for example, as with all other foods. There is explicitly no reason for the EU to do so." The authorities have just not done anything to enforce it so far, he said. The CEEV is fighting for the obligation to provide nutritional information as well as a warning label in order to prevent even more severe restrictions in sales in the future, for example through minimum prices per bottle or high price surcharges.
(uka / Photo: DWI)