Benjamin Bestgen

Last year I wrote about wine and the law for SLN. With the festive season in full swing, many of you will be going wine shopping. However, the sheer amount of options can overwhelm consumers. Therefore, shoppers often stick with what they always buy, don’t experiment and miss out on great bargains.

The internet and enthusiastic wine merchants can be helpful, but unfortunately, not everyone working in a wine store will be knowledgeable.

My contribution to this year’s festive cheer is to share a few words about wine labels and how to read them. You won’t be surprised that wine labels are subject to legal requirements but that doesn’t equate to them being readily comprehensible to consumers.

In this article I will focus on still and sparkling wines made from vitis vinifera only, i.e. grape wines with an alcohol content of 8.5% to 15%. I leave out fortified wines, no/low alcoholic wine-based drinks and wines not made from grapes.

Buying wine in Britain – core information

The British Isles are a major importer of wine from all over the world, but only a very small wine producing country. Therefore, mandatory labelling rules are fairly modest: a wine label must clearly show the country the wine is from, the volume of the bottle, the “Alcohol by Volume” percentage, the importer (for non-UK wines) and lot code as well as certain allergens.

If a bottle names the wine producer, protected designations of origin / geographical indications, a vintage and the grape variety, that information must be correct.

While units of alcohol and health warnings are not compulsory for wine labels, it is prohibited to advertise wine as beneficial to health, be it mental or physical. The established science is that no amount of alcohol is good for humans, medically speaking. While red wine is thought to contain some beneficial compounds like resveratrol, any potential benefits are cancelled out by the alcohol.

The QR code you find on wines imported from the EU, which contains links to the nutritional information and ingredients isn’t presently mandatory in the UK. But increasingly other countries consider adopting it as consumers value transparency.

Other information not legally mandated in the UK

The wine market is fiercely competitive. The label is a key way for wineries to draw customers’ eyes to their product. Winemakers may include flavour descriptions on the label, which is helpful to buyers. However, some terminology might still elude shoppers searching for a nice bottle.

Here is a quick guide to commonly encountered terms:

Grape variety

Many countries specify the grape variety or composition of the blend. Where a wine is indicated as a single varietal (e.g. “Pinot Noir”), the origin country’s laws will prescribe the minimum percentage of that grape the wine must contain: this ranges from 75% in the USA to 85% in the EU. Small additions of other grape varieties can be allowed without having to be indicated.

Vintage / NV

Vintage denotes the year of the grape harvest. The wine must be made only from grapes from that year’s harvest.

NV means non-vintage, stating that the wine in your bottle was blended from wines across several harvests to ensure a consistent house style, so buyers always know what they are getting.

Dry / Off-dry / Medium / Sweet

Dryness in wine denotes the residual sugar left in the wine after fermentation. A dry wine has no or very little sugar left. Most still and sparkling wines nowadays tend to be dry, perhaps off-dry. Rules may vary slightly between countries and appellations.

Champagne has its own dosage classification to indicate sweetness, from a bone-dry “Brut Nature” all the way to a sweet “Doux”. Most champagnes sold are “Brut”, meaning less than 12 grams of sugar per litre.

Organic / Natural Wine / Low Interference Wine / Biodynamic

These terms are poorly regulated across the wine world and open to abuse. In general, they indicate that the grape-grower and winemaker used no or very low levels of fertilisers, pesticides, commercial yeasts, sulphites and other chemicals and didn’t utilise advanced wine making techniques to refine the product. A lot of these wines are unfiltered and unrefined, cloudy and have slightly “funky” aromas which some consumers love, others detest.

Vegan wine

As a grape beverage, wine is always vegan. But filtration and clarification methods in wine production can use animal products, like eggwhites or isinglass. Vegan wine will not have used any animal products.

Old Vines / Vieilles Vignes / Alte Reben / Viñeas viejas

Grapevines tend to bear fruit from the third year after planting and are most productive until they are between 20 to 30 years old (depending on variety). But vines can produce fruit for well over a century, though yields get lower with age.

As the vine produces fewer grapes, it devotes all its resources to those few grape clusters, often leading to more concentrated, richer flavours and a richer, more concentrated wine. Some regions prescribe the minimum age of a vine before it can be labelled “Old Vine” but regulations vary.

Traditional Method / Méthode traditionnelle

This refers to the bottle fermentation method, famously (but not exclusively) used in Champagne (France) for producing sparkling wines. Not all sparkling wines are made this way: for example, Prosecco is a “tank fermented” wine which is more suitable to the aromatic Glera grapes and the particular character of the drink.

Botrytis / Botrytised wine / Eiswein / Icewine / Appassimento / Passerillage

Different techniques in the making of quality sweet wines: the “noble rot” fungus, naturally occurring frost or drying (either off the vine or on) are used to naturally concentrate the grapes’ sugars, tannins, flavours and acids. Noble rot also adds its own particular flavours to the wine, described as notes of honey, ginger, candied citrus peel, stonefruit and marmalade.

Late Harvest / Spätlese / Vendange Tardive

The grapes were allowed to stay on the vine a bit longer, drying out slightly and concentrating sugars and flavour. These wines can be fermented to dryness but may be off-dry or medium in sweetness.

Regional labelling

In some countries like France, Italy or Spain, labels may state the region but not the grape. Regions, also called appellations, have their own rules on wines produced there. If the consumer reads “Sancerre” on a white wine, they have to know that in the Sancerre region, Sauvignon Blanc is the permitted white grape. An Italian Chianti will be made from the black Sangiovese grape, while Riojas are most commonly made from Tempranillo or Garnacha.

For some regional wine styles, blending is common, such as the Cabernet Sauvignon + Merlot blends in Bordeaux or the rich blends of Grenache, Syrah and Mourvèdre (“GSM Blend”) in Châteauneuf-du-Pape AOC.

Maturation

On some bottles you’ll see descriptions such as “Riserva”, “Grand Reserva”, “Gran Selezione” etc. These terms indicate aging conditions the wine underwent, both barrel aging and bottle maturation. They are region-specific and you will need to check what the rules for the relevant region are.

Quality indicators

On some bottles you may find terms like Vin de Pays, Table Wine, Gran Cru, Premier Cru, Großes Gewächs, Erste Lage, Cru Village etc. These terms carry specific meaning in some jurisdictions, notably France or Germany, and are worth looking up to learn about the quality classifications. In other countries, terms like Premier Cru or Gran Cru may be used to indicate superior quality but are often unregulated.

Enjoy discovering more

Like many things in life, wine becomes more interesting the more you learn about it. Knowledge is also power: it equips you to spot a bargain, protects you from getting ripped off with that overpriced bottle of mediocre celebrity plonk and broadens your palate as you become more confident and willing to experiment.

In that spirit, I wish you, dear reader, all the very best for December 2025 (please drink responsibly 😊).

Benjamin Bestgen is a solicitor and notary public (qualified in Scotland). He holds a master of arts degree in philosophy and tutored in practical philosophy and jurisprudence at the Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main and the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of ‘Practical Jurisprudence – Attempts to make legal philosophy interesting’ (2022). An interested amateur in wine, he also passed the WSET Level 3 this year with distinction.