Falsely labelled wine leaves leading maker blushing

By ANNE BESTON

An anonymous tip has forced a winery to apologise for falsely labelling one of its wines, but one connoisseur questioned how the mistake could have happened.

Chard Farm Winery near Queenstown will not be prosecuted for labelling a rose "de pinot noir" when the pinot noir grape content in the wine was substantially below the minimum content set by the Food Safety Authority.

"It's about the public's right to know what's in their wines and in this case mistakes were made," said the authority's compliance and investigation manager, Geoff Allen.

The pinot noir content should have been 75 per cent but he could not say what percentage it actually was.

A Takapuna wineshop said yesterday that the 2002 wine was out of stock but had sold for $20.95.

An audit of Chard Farm was carried out after a complaint was laid by an anonymous member of the wine industry.

Herald wine writer Joelle Thomson said tougher rules were needed for the country's 464 commercial vineyards.

"There have been several scandals over the past decade.

"I'm surprised to learn a pioneering winery such as Chard Farm has done this. It's difficult to see how it could happen."

Chard Farm is one of the country's most respected winemaking firms. It was established in 1993.

The company said the mislabelling came about through "human error and "lack of focus" on labelling requirements.

Mr Allen said it would not be prosecuted for the breach but would undergo more stringent auditing over the next year. It had publicly apologised.

"As such it has been exposed to equivalent or greater consumer exposure than through a prosecution process."

The authority was at present implementing the Wine Act, passed by Parliament last year, which introduces new systems and tools for checking on compliance with the rules, he said.

Matua Valley Winery spokesman Bill Spence said Chard Farm had "huge respect" within the winemaking industry.

"The big thing is we want to be seen correcting people because it affects our overseas image. Our exports are our lifeline."

Chard Farm owner Rob Hay said all the falsely labelled wine was withdrawn from sale and relabelled.

The mistake had been "very expensive". The same error would also have affected Chard Farm's 2003 rose but that was taken from the shelves when the mistake was discovered.

The rose de pinot noir was about 2 per cent of total production and was sold only on the domestic market.

Rose wines are made by leaving the grapes intact with skins for 24 hours after harvesting, resulting in a delicate, blush-coloured juice.

Off wine

In 1995, exported wine from Cooper's Creek was found to be not true to the label.

In 1999, Lintz Estate returned a gold medal won by its 1997 shiraz because the judged wine differed from that sold in shops.

In 1999, Cairnbrae Vineyards withdrew a sauvignon blanc from the market after discrepancies were found in its wine-making records.