Consumers to drive transparency in wine

Wednesday, 15 May, 2013
Patrick Schmitt, the drinks business
Increasing consumer awareness of food and drink additives will drive transparency in the wine trade, believes Isabelle Legeron MW.
As organiser of natural wine fair RAW, Legeron has listed the additives for every wine due to be shown at the London-based event, which can be viewed online, including the total sulphite level in mg/l.

She took the same approach for last year’s inaugural fair, although she admitted that it is “a hell of a lot of work as you have to do a sulphite analysis of every cuvée.”

Describing her motivation for listing such detailed information, she told db last week, “There is a surprisingly low level of knowledge of how wine is made… and personally I like to know the sulphite levels.

“I want to raise awareness of how wine is made and empower people to choose,” she added.

But Legeron also said that there was increasing demand for such information from wine professionals.

“I’m often asked for a list of wines with no added sulphites and wine drinkers generally are becoming more savvy and more interested in what they eat and drink.”

Furthermore, she said that such a development was the early stages of a future, much broader call for transparency when it comes to winemaking.

“What we are doing at RAW is just the beginning, I’m convinced it is part of something bigger – people drinking wine are more interested and want to know more and more,” she said.

Nevertheless, she admitted such specialist knowledge was currently only required by a “particular segment” which she identified as young professionals with a reasonably high disposable income who shop at markets and “think about what coffee they drink”.

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WineLand

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Isabelle Legeron
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