WASHINGTON — Beer, wine and other alcoholic beverage labels would be loaded up with mandatory nutrition and alcohol-content information under a new Bush administration proposal.

For the first time, all alcohol labels would list calories, fat, protein and carbohydrates. They would include the percent of alcohol by volume. And with separate "Serving Facts" panels, alcohol labels would more closely resemble those found on other foods.

"We believe that this information should be presented to consumers in a uniform, standardized format that is prominent on the label, so that consumers may easily avail themselves of this important information," the Treasury Department said when posting its proposed rule in the Federal Register.

Beer, wine and liquor would all be covered by the new label requirements, proposed yesterday by the Treasury Department's Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. The label proposal has been years in the making, and the fight isn't over yet.

The Beer Institute, the brewers' national lobby, has fought to keep the alcohol content labels voluntary, saying consumers already know what they need.

"The alcohol content of most beer is in a very narrow range, and consumers are generally aware of that fact," the Beer Institute stated.

Mom-and-pop vintners agree.

"I'd hate to have to do it," Leon Sobon, founder of the small, family-owned Shenandoah Vineyards in California's Amador County, said yesterday. "I think it's completely unnecessary."

Mark Chandler, executive director of the Lodi Woodbridge Winegrape Commission in California's San Joaquin Valley, agreed that nutrition labels would be "unnecessary and redundant." He said they might force winemakers to "reconfigure" the size of their labels.