Between the bogus class action lawsuit alleging unsafe levels of arsenic in some wines; the Illinois Liquor Control Commission targeting out-of-state wine shipments; the California ABC saying wineries can’t mention retailers in tweets and that you don’t need to know you have a “tied-house” violation to have one, attorneys representing wineries have been even busier than usual.
CBS News “broke” the non-story of the arsenic lawsuit, sensationalizing it the day it was filed in California, prompting copycat coverage from scores of news outlets. Unfortunately, most occasional wine drinkers who chanced upon the media coverage are unlikely to remember the details. They’ll probably remember three words: arsenic in wine.
By now, most everyone in the wine trade knows the arsenic lawsuit that was filed in mid-March is meritless, though consumers will have questions. The suit alleges certain wines (as tested by a former wine distributor now starting a business screening alcoholic beverages for heavy metals) were found to be in excess of a legal limit for drinking water. There’s no legal standard for arsenic levels for wine in the United States, however, and even if the unaccredited lab data cited in the suit is to be believed, the levels are below limits set for wine in Canada and the EU. There’s no research showing that the amounts of arsenic that were supposedly found pose a health risk either. Moreover, you’d need to drink a LOT of wine to reach equivalent U.S. drinking water limits. Surely the alcohol would kill you first.
As part of the California Wine Institute’s efforts to keep consumers, the media, and the trade informed, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), which tests wines for arsenic in its accredited labs, released test results for thousands of wines (17,537 wines from the world were tested in 2014, including 2,247 from California), showing arsenic levels well below allowable limits. The LCBO said results from 12 years of testing were consistent over time.
UC Davis, meanwhile, published a fact sheet on arsenic in wine, a good resource for wineries to search for online.
One passage of the lawsuit claims that, quote, “Responsible California wineries who do have proper methods and processes in place to reduce inorganic arsenic to acceptable levels are unable to compete at the same price point in the wine market with those wineries who choose instead not to implement the proper methods and processes (and incur the costs thereof) to ensure their wine customers are not exposed to dangerous levels of inorganic arsenic from their contaminated wines.”
It sounds ridiculous but if we hear of any such “methods,” we’ll follow up in future issues of Wine Business Monthly.
With copy-cat suits filed in Florida and Louisiana, more could come out of the woodwork. In addition to wineries specifically named, 200 “John Does” were included, meaning more wineries could be added later. These things sometimes take years to litigate and can be very expensive, even if they’re meritless. In cases like this, the only winners are the attorneys.
Cyril Penn – editor