List of ingredients and nutritional information: the composition of wine produced from today and sold within the European Union becomes mandatory to be indicated on a label or via a QR code that can be read with a smartphone.

Wine has long enjoyed an exception to this rule, as only its allergenic ingredients, such as sulphites, had to be listed.

But the European Union established new regulations which apply to all wines produced from today, December 8.

For non-sparkling wines, the new regulations do not concern all those whose characteristics have already reached the required level, and will therefore apply rather to the following vintages.

For sparkling wines such as Champagne, those from the 2023 vintage that will go through a second fermentation after December 8 will have to obey the new regulations.

Winemakers may choose to report this information on the label or through a QR code which will point to a website on the Internet.

This is the choice made by Vincent Quillet, a champagne producer.

“We tried to put everything on the labels, it really takes up a lot of space“, he explained to AFP. “We would have to change all the machines, the packaging, too much right now.”

Some winemakers believe that QR codes favor winemakers who use a lot of added products, as organic or biodynamic wines do not widely resort to them and can therefore easily display all ingredients on a label.

“We are very much in favor of transparency in products” and “we thought it was important to implement this regulation in a modern way,” Anne Alle, director of the Vignerons Cooperateurs, which lobbied to make it possible, told AFP. the digital label.

The GS1 organization, in cooperation with the players in the sector, developed the specifications for the minimum information that must be displayed on the platforms to which the QR code refers.

On the basis of these specifications, the Commission of European Wine Enterprises presented its own platform called U-Label, which is available in all EU languages.

GS1 is also making its own “core solution” available to small producers, Didier Veloso, president of GS1 France, told AFP.

Other businesses offer similar tools.

At some point, Didier Veloso points out, QR codes will potentially be able to contain indications that allow a better tracking of the product, including for example lot numbers, while they will also be able to replace the bar code at the checkout.