Some surprising dos and don'ts in wine labeling.

The Council of Ministers of the European Union (EU) has lifted restrictions on what may be printed on wine labels. From now on labels for all EU-produced wines may be printed with the variety of grape, the vintage and the vineyard. Hitherto, only quality wines with AOC pedigree could carry this information, although paradoxically no restrictions were imposed on labels of wines imported into the EU.

For reasons not altogether clear to your correspondent, this liberalizing measure was opposed, unsuccessfully, by the European Parliament. Worldwide, the human race manages to empty some 35 billion bottles of wine annually, and the world's top three producers, accounting for nearly half of total production, are all in Europe. They are, in order: France, Italy and Spain. USA is number 4 (see chart). This means big business in particular for Southern Europe's label converters, and also for labelstock manufacturers like Manter (Spain) and Ritrama (Italy), both specializing in materials for wine labeling. Global Wine Production (millions of hectoliters)

Production 2006 % of world production France 52.0 18.2 Italy 50.6 17.7 Spain 34.8 12.2 USA 28.7 10.0 Argentina 15.2 5.3 Australia 14.0 4.9 China 12.4 4.3 Germany 9.1 3.2 South Africa 8.4 2.9 Chile 7.9 2.8 Portugal 7.3 2.6 Romania 5.6 2.0 Greece 4.1 1.4 Total World 286.0 100.0 Source: US Treasury Department