Designer Sees Red Over Required Warning Labels

When the U.S. government began to require that all alcoholic beverage containers contain a warning label, Rick Tharp was upset.

He has been a label designer since 1975, and he felt the government was robbing the bottle of precious space in which the winery could describe the wine. All this for a warning he felt certain would be largely ignored by the public, which has managed to look the other way at those on cigarette labels. So he decided to gently poke fun at the warning.

The result: Chateau le Warning, a bottle of wine whose label is a spoof of the federally mandated warning label now seen on the back or side of wine bottles, beer cans and distilled spirits.

The wine inside the bottle is somewhat immaterial (although Tharp said it was a high-quality Cabernet Sauvignon from Konocti Winery in Lake County that will retail for $12). The message is the label. It carries in large type the complete warning. The “chateau” mentioned in the brand name is depicted as a roof over a Universal Price Code (UPC) symbol--printed in 14-karat gold ink.

“It’s scannable at the supermarket,” said Tharp, president of Tharp Did It, a graphics design company based in Los Gatos. “If you scan it, my telephone number will come up (on the supermarket’s scanning screen).”

Tharp said his motivation for putting out the wine with the pranksterish label was more than mere humor.

“Having designed labels and packages for a number of California and East Coast wineries, I felt this was a way to address the problem of making a government warning fit on bottles that often don’t have room to accommodate that information.

“But it’s not just an example of how absurd or insane it is to have a warning label. There are so many things now required for wine labels. . . . All of these things take up space and take away from the space we could use to tell the consumer something of benefit to him about the wine.”

Tharp said he intended to sell about 200 cases of the wine. One problem: He has yet to receive approval for use of the label from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

He doesn’t see this as a real obstacle. How, he asks, can the BATF deny him the use of the label? “It meets all the federal requirements, including readability, type size, accuracy. . . .”

Tom Ferrell has resigned as president of Sterling Vineyards and the Seagram Classics Wine Co. has been realigned, relocating the company’s headquarters from San Mateo to the Napa Valley.

The company said Cary Gott, who had been president of The Monterey Vineyard, would become executive vice president of the company in charge of three Seagram properties--his former winery as well as Sterling Vineyards and Mumm Napa Valley.

In all, more than a dozen persons have left the company, Seagram said.

In an unrelated move, Tucker Catlin, who had been vice president of vineyard operations for Sterling, resigned to accept the position of executive vice president of Schramsberg Associates International.

Catlin will direct Schramsberg’s joint venture in Portugal and the company’s Consulting Group serving wine industry clients.

Five California producers have formed an organization to develop a joint marketing plan and to share technical production and regulatory information.

The group, calling itself Artisan Distillers of California, includes Germain-Robin Alambic Brandy; Jepson Vineyards; Bonny Doon Vineyard; Creekside Vineyards and Distillery, and St. George Spirits.

All the producers use traditional European methods to produce brandies, eaux-de-vies, fortified wines, grappas, infusions, marcs and mistelles from locally grown fruits and grapes.

Leon Adams, dean of American wine authors and historians, will be presented the lifetime achievement award as part of the World of Wine weekend at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Laguna Niguel.

The fourth edition of Adams’ work, “The Wines of America,” was recently released.

Adams, 85, founded the Wine Institute in 1933 and the Wine Advisory Board in 1938.

Adams will receive his award at a testimonial dinner at the World of Wines event Nov. 16-18. It is open to the public.

Domaine Carneros released its first sparkling wine, a non-vintage Brut, Sept. 9 with an open house for 500 guests. The wine, which sells for $18 a bottle, is made entirely from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes grown on the estate.

Domaine Carneros is a project of Taittinger of Reims, France, along with three groups of investors. About 15,000 cases of the first release were produced.

The National Orange Show has announced that its annual wine judging has changed its name to the New World International Wine Competition; it will accept entries from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, and elsewhere in Central and South America.

New director Jerry Mead said the event, formerly a domestic wine competition, was restructured because of the growing availability of wines from these areas as well as the fact that “all of these nations have in common the same grape varieties and the same wine designations.”

Wine of The Week

1989 St. Supery Sauvignon Blanc ($8) --There have been so many exciting Sauvignon Blancs from the 1989 vintage it’s hard to choose one from the next. But St. Supery makes its Sauvignon Blanc in a different style from most. The main aroma has a faint unripe melon and lime component, with a structure that’s more like a cross between Graves and the Loire. The flavor is assertive, but not grassy. A lovely wine from St. Supery’s Pope Valley property, Dollarhide Ranch.