legally interesting/controversial

In many situations, TTB will not allow national flags, and especially not the US flag. The regulations support this. So the above labels seem to be noteworthy exceptions. Maize Valley Winery’s Redneck Red wine shows The American Flag on the main label, alongside The Confederate Flag. In the second example, The American Flag appears with the Military Flag of Japan. The wine is made by D’Vine Wine of Fredricksburg, Texas. A notable instance where TTB did not allow the US flag is on this New Hampshire beer.

Back in the 1970s ATF/TTB worked vigorously to control wine-labeling, where FDA wanted to get involved and insist upon detailed ingredient lists, as is common on most other food labels. The matter got resolved by way of Brown-Forman Distillers Corp. v. Mathews, 435 F. Supp. 5 (W.D. Ky. 1976). But this did not stop Bonny Doon Winery. Many of Bonny Doon’s labels include quite detailed ingredient labeling, and Bonny Doon has been one of few alcohol beverage companies willing to swim against the tide and volunteer this information. Bonny Doon’s Cunning label shows the following ingredients:  grapes, tartaric acid and sulfur dioxide. It goes on to say the product was made with cultured yeast, yeast nutrients, French oak chips, and French oak barrels. According to Decanter, Bonny Doon president Randall Grahm said:

It’s useful to provide more detailed information about the ingredients used in wine production and reduce our dependence on standard wine additions, even those considered to be benign such as tartaric acid, bentonite, yeast nutrients, enzymes, sulphur dioxide.

Let us know if you see other TTB labels with detailed ingredient labeling.

This approval shows a tremendous amount of change in eight short years. First of all, it is hard to imagine that the Bureau would ever allow the term “vodka” on a beer label. Somehow I don’t think that would fly in this day and age. Further, the qualification seems to mandate the use of this term, in a particular way. The qualification suggests that the arrangement of the words may lead to controversy, rather than the reference to vodka and a famous vodka brand on a beer label. Pages 12-22 of this document show the controversy. Second, the product is gone. So is the named agency (that is, the label functions have moved from ATF to TTB). So is the person that approved it. Judy was tremendously helpful and probably had many good reasons to approve this label, in a different era. I wouldn’t want to mention the person, but for the fact that the name is right there and the memories are good. This is also a good example of a “use-up.” The approval tends to say the label is not ideal but the agency will allow it to be used for six months only. I believe TTB/ATF has allowed use-ups for many, many decades. It is difficult to imagine other agencies allowing this privilege, such...