Now This: Is Avaline the Most Transparent Wine Brand? Yes: Clean, Organic and Lists Ingredients–And Since When Is Raventos I Blanc "Industrial Plonk"? (It's Not.)

It would seem, despite all the brouhaha about Avaline being a Clean Wine, that much has been overlooked. I took a little more time yesterday to visit the company's website and download its tech sheets and wine labels and I was surprised to see in addition to making certified wines (Made with Organic Grapes), it's also listing the ingredients in its wines.

Here's the tech sheet on its website for its rosé:

The only other wine brand that I know of that lists ingredients is one of our most admired brands–Ridge–but they are certifying only the grapes (from their own organic estates, not from all the vineyards it buys grapes from, like Pagani, which has used a LOT of Roundup for a long time). I once asked Paul Draper why they were not making certified wines and his answer was, "what if I needed to use 101 ppm of sulfites in a wine?"–i.e. he didn't want to be tied to the Made with Organic Grapes requirement of 100 ppm sulfite max. Understood.

And, unlike other private label wine brands, it also tells you who the producer is. For the rosé, that's Mas de Cadenet. The certifier for this producer is also listed on the tech sheet.

Here's what you see on their canned rose wine label:

AND AS FOR PLONK?

I had thought Avaline's sparkling wine was very good, but I hadn't looked at the tech sheet. Now I have. No wonder it's good - it's from one of Spain's top sparkling wineries, listed as a Top 100 winery by Wine & Spirits and winner of many other prestigious awards. So I think it's a bit unfair of the Chronicle's wine writer to consider Avaline's wines strictly as "industrial plonk." Clearly, that description does not fit all of Avaline's wines.

RAISING THE BAR TO NEW HEIGHTS  

I am hoping the wine writing community will take a closer look at Avaline and see that the brand has totally raised the bar on transparency–giving consumers something they really want–a better way to see what's in the bottle, and a higher bar for other wineries to rise to. No other certified Made with Organic Grapes wine producer offers ingredients labeling.

Let's repeat that: No other certified Made with Organic Grapes wine producer offers ingredients labeling.

See what a little star power can do to raise the wine industry's standards.