What you can learn from wine labels

A few weeks ago, a friend and I were sitting at my dining room table with a few bottles of California red blends, having a comparative tasting. We started looking at the back labels of the wines, seeing what information they provided.

One of the bottles stated the wine was “vinted and cellared by” a winery. My friend asked me what that meant, and although I wasn’t 100 percent sure, the former English teacher in me took a guess based on context clues.

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Since a vintner is someone who makes wines, I guessed that the phrase meant the wine was made, bottled and stored (cellared) at the winery. I was wrong both about the definition of vintner and what the phrase meant on the wine bottle.

A vintner is either a maker of wine or a seller of wine. On a wine bottle “vinted” means that the wine has been in the cellar of the winery whose address is on the label, but it could have been produced and bottled elsewhere.

Wine bottle labels in the United States are overseen by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), and the agency required certain information on a wine label: brand name, alcohol content, bottle volume, sulfite content, and the bottler's name and address. The government warning must be on the bottle also.

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A lot of that is straightforward, but you won’t always see the alcohol content or the sulfite content on a bottle. The alcohol content must be stated on the bottle if it contains more than 14 percent alcohol. Anything between 7 and 14 percent can be stated or be indicated by the words “table wine.” The sulfite content is necessary if the total sulfur dioxide or a sulfiting agent is detected at 10 ppm or more. It’s usually indicated by the words “contains sulfites.”

There is almost always more information on a wine bottle label, though, so let’s take a look at some of the terms and phrases, like “vinted and cellared by,’’ that aren’t as straightforward as the required information.

Produced by – At least 75 percent of the wine was fermented at the address on the bottle, which is usually the winery. It’s an indication that the winery fermented and bottled the wine.

Cellared and bottled by – The winery whose name is on the label didn’t make the wine.

Appellation of Origin (AVA)– At least 85 percent of the grapes in the wine must be from the AVA (American Viticultural Area) for the AVA to be on the bottle. For New Jersey wine, if you see a bottle labeled “Outer Coastal Plain” or “Warren Hills” you’ll know that the majority, if not all, of the grapes were grown in one of those AVAs.

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Varietal Designation – If the wine is labeled as a varietal, meaning one specific grape type, 75 percent of the wine must be from that particular grape.

Vintage Date – If there is a date on the wine, it indicates the year the grapes were harvested, not the year the bottled wine was released. If there is a date, 95 percent of the grapes must be from that year if there is an AVA designated on the bottle. If there is no AVA, only 85 percent of the grapes must be from that.

Estate Bottled – 100 percent of the grapes in the wine must have been grown by the winery in one of its own vineyards that are in the same AVA as the bottling winery.

Vineyard Name – 95 percent of the grapes have to come from the vineyard named.

Descriptive Paragraph – There will often be a description on the back of the wine label. Sometimes it will tell a story about the winery. Sometimes it will tell you what you’re supposed to smell and taste in the wine. A lot of times you won’t smell and taste those things, and it’s perfectly OK. You may also find pairing suggestions in this paragraph.

Reserve, Special Selection or Private Selection – In other countries, these words may have specific meanings. In the U.S., they can mean anything. They’re marketing terms. Hopefully, they indicate a higher quality than one of the winery’s non-private special reserve wines, but they don’t have to.

100 percent Vinifera Rootstock – You won’t find this on many wines, but it is on some wines from the northwest U.S. It means that the vines the grapes are grown on come from rootstock that survived the late 19th Phylloxera epidemic when a louse decimated European vines.

Robin Shreeves is the food and drinks writer for the environmental news site Mother Nature Network, and a frequent contributor to Edible Jersey Magazine and Drink Philly. She's also the co-author of “The One Year Women in Christian History’’ (Tyndale, 2014).