What wine is that? … international label standards breakthrough

Countries including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US, Chile and Argentina have agreed on elements of wine labels to be standardised such as product designation, content volume, the alcohol percentage and the wine’s country of origin.

Warren Truss, Australian federal trade minister, hailed the agreement as a positive development for the Australian wine industry. He said that it will open up Australian wine to an international market and could save the wine industry $25 million per year.

Brenton Barrett of Nationwide Labelling and president of LATMA (Label & Tag Manufacturer’s Association) echoed Truss’ praise. “We applaud the standardisation of regulations: it’s great to see the wine industry locally is taking the lead here and starting to have some success,” he said. “The standardisation will make the supply chain more efficient and should provide efficiencies for label printers and potentially even see larger runs.”