Progress Seen on Alcohol Labeling

For years, federal lawmakers and the alcohol industry have worked together to prevent serving-size, alcohol content, and other information from being listed on bottles of beer, wine, and liquor. Now, however, some in the industry say it's time to provide more information to consumers, the Chicago Tribune reported Dec. 4.

Federal law currently prohibits most nutritional information from being listed on alcohol containers, despite government efforts to make nutritional data more available elsewhere, including on fast-food packaging. Brewers, vintners, and distillers have long worked together to prevent similar labeling. But now, some distillers want consumers to know that a shot of bourbon has fewer calories than a bottle of beer, hoping to boost sales.

"The consumers are saying they want more information whether it is on their bottle of chardonnay, their six-pack of beer, or their bottle of Scotch," said Gary Galanis, a spokesman for Diageo North America. Diageo has asked the federal government to allow distillers to put more nutrition information on their labels. In 2004, the Treasury Department's Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau issued guidelines for adding health information on beer labels, but did not require the information to be added.

Groups like the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) want to require nutritional information on alcohol labels; that proposal is currently under review at the agency level. "Consumers should not have to guess about the alcohol strength, serving size, number of servings per container, calories or ingredients of alcoholic beverages," said CSPI's George Hacker.

The Beer Institute issued a statement saying that consumers "are adequately informed by existing labels." Beer companies dislike federal standards that equate a shot of alcohol to a 12-ounce beer for purposes of caloric comparisons.

The wine industry, however, has not yet taken a position on the labeling proposal; the Wine Institute is scheduled to meet this week to discuss labeling.