Wines pouring into low-carb marketing

By Michelle Locke
Associated Press

RUTHERFORD, Calif. — Ever wonder if that full-bodied wine will leave you in a similar condition? Some wineries are tapping into consumers' low-carb cravings with labels listing calorie and carbohydrate counts.

The maker of Southern Comfort and of Fetzer wines is introducing new low-carb wines, named for the carbohydrates per 5-ounce glass. Associated Press

"People want this information and we have a good story to tell," said Ray Chadwick, president of Diageo Chateau & Estate Wines, owner of Beaulieu Vineyard.

Beer companies already are marketing low-carb versions of their product and the federal government recently said alcoholic beverage producers may list calorie and carbohydrate content on labels.

Most dry wines are well below the 7 grams per serving set for calling a beverage low-carb. The new rules say fat and protein (wine has none of the former and only a trace of the latter) must be listed along with calories and carbs. They forbid any implication that low-carb alcohol can play a healthy role in losing or maintaining weight.

Diageo plans to add nutritional labeling to its BV Coastal, Sterling Vintners Collection and Century Cellars brands. The information will go on labels, known as bottle neckers, hung around the top of the bottle. A sample for BV Coastal Estates 2002 chardonnay bills the wine as "Low Carbs, High Standards," and says a 5-ounce serving has 3 grams of carbohydrates, 124 calories, less than 1 gram of protein and no fat.

Sutter Home's famous white zin, the wine that started the blush rush, has 8.3 grams of carbohydrate per 5-ounce serving, just over the low-carb limit.

Sutter Home and BV aren't changing their wines, just listing the carb content. But Kentucky-based Brown-Forman is making special, low-carb wines: One.6 chardonnay and One.9 merlot, named for the number of carbohydrates in a 5-ounce serving. Brown-Foreman, which makes Jack Daniel's and Southern Comfort, owns California-based Fetzer Vineyards among others.

The new labels are a departure for bottle prose, said Paul Wagner, owner of Napa-based Balzac Communications & Marketing: "Telling people that the wine is 100 percent zinfandel from a tiny vineyard 1,300 feet up ... doesn't really tell American consumers very much about the wine."

Many diets discourage alcohol for fear it will strengthen the appetite and weaken self-control. The popular Atkins and South Beach diets forbid alcohol in the first stage of the regime, although they do allow moderate consumption later on.

Advertising wine's carbohydrate content is "probably a smart move," said James Capparrell, president and publisher of the magazine LowCarb Living. "The common foods and drinks — you tend to forget what is high and low in carbohydrate."

Wagner doesn't expect to see carb counts on expensive wine —"When people are buying $150 bottles of bordeaux, I don't think they care about calories or carbs" — but does expect it to catch on at the $15-and-under category.

"It's not going to be a competitive advantage, but I do think simply the fact they are offering this information is going to be an advantage," Wagner said. "It just really goes to show who's listening and who isn't."

Some look askance at the idea of drinking wine by the numbers.

"For the nongeneric wine market, I think it'd be a detriment. "You're drinking wine because of enjoyment," said Erica Valentine, co-owner of the Vineyard Outlet, a Napa-based wine shop. "If you're counting calories you probably shouldn't be drinking wine."