According to a story reported by the Guardian, wine consumers are being purposely and “systematically” mislead by vintners in regards to the alcoholic strength of their wines.  The study suggests that over 16-year period labels on 129,00 wines from across the globe were lying to consumers, allowing vineyards to market their wines as a less intense buzz, more than likely, causing people to drink more.  Genius ain’t it…

The study, conducted by the American Association of Wine Economist, found that more than half of the wines tested had a stronger alcohol content than the number marked on the label.  The median alcohol levels posted on the wine labels tested hovered around 13.1%, but the measured level was 13.6%.  The difference seems small, but the problem is that the 0.5% may just be enough to send a person over the edge during the second or third full glass.

The US, Chile, and Argentina came up as the worst offenders.  And as mentioned before by this author, the winemakers are not feeling shameful after their deceptive practices were revealed:

Some winemakers … have admitted they deliberately chose to understate the alcohol content on a wine label, within the range of error permitted by the law, because they believed that it would be advantageous for marketing the wine to do so,” said the report, written by a team led by Julian Alston at the University of California.

Some winemakers are trying to claim that consumers are drawn to the high alcohol content of some wines, but according to Jancis Robinson, a leading British wine critic, “winemakers want to endow their wines with the sensory appeal associated with ripe flavours and concomitant high alcohol but know that many consumers are intellectually opposed to high alcohol levels.”

Understandably, no one is really all-that-up-in-arms about this story mainly because wine taste so good and now, more than ever, we know why it makes you feel so good.

FrugiVoice: Are you going to curb that second or third glass of wine now that you know the label on your wine bottle may not be telling truth? Do you even care?