TTB Label Approval Search Advice From Eliot Ness
The TTB's website really does have a lot of good information. (If you know where to look) I myself can vouch for this firsthand as I've been viewing it as part of my profession since 1998. It has come a long way since then! Now they are going back to their roots by including a section titled, "Eliot Knows" which is basically a version of their FAQs page.
Eliot's latest information for the curious wine regulation searcher is about one of the TTB's sites, the Public COLA Registry. Read more
Teaching An Old Wine a New AVA.
A recent discussion came up on Facebook around the use of newly created AVAs (American Viticultural Areas) on wine labels made from vintages pre the AVA's existence. The discussion was around the recently created AVA of Coombsville in eastern Napa. The question that came up was would that be allowable under the TTB's labeling regulations? i.e. If you are about to bottle a 2009 wine and wanted to put Coombsville (which became an AVA in December 2011) as an AVA on the label could you do this? Read more
Does Your Wine Have an Outdated Identity?
Did you know that all wines have a standard of identity? All US wines that is, and this is in relation to how the TTB (www.ttb.gov/wine) defines them. A required item for any wine label is what the TTB refers to as a "class & type". In most of our cases the class we are speaking of is the "grape wine" class. (Some of the others include citrus, fruit and sparkling just FYI) Then moving into the "class" part of it the list of options there used to include 17 designations of European origin. An agreement was signed between the US and the EU in 2006 which essentially removed those 17 designations for use on US wine labels unless you'd grandfathered their use in via earlier labels. Read more