The wine industry has won a battle of sorts against the neo-prohibitionist forces in the US. Using as its grounds the First Amendment in the US, wine companies are able to make health claims on wine labels that can be substantiated through scientific research. On the other hand, they still have to balance these claims with the raft of health warnings that have plagued American wine labels ever since Proposition 65 was enacted in California back in 1988. Australian wine buyers will be only too aware that our labels have for many years carried the preservative numbers of legal additives used in any wines, although many are still under the misapprehension that the appearance of these numbers actually signalled the recent adoption of preservatives by the wine industry. Over the years a number of winemakers, frustrated by the number concerned consumers who would not buy their product under these grounds, have wanted to write the words ‘Vitamin enriched’ on the labels of their wines to which have been added the antioxidant ascorbic acid, also known on the health counters as Vitamin C. At least there is now the possibility that a few more people might learn about the multitude of health benefits associated with wine, many of which are presented in easily understood language at the Australian Wine Research Institute.
