Walking into a major grocery’s wine section can be an intimidating experience. Rather than having a local winemaker on hand to answer questions and offer tastes, a shopper is faced with a wall of bottles, hundreds of rather obtuse labels with no wine adviser in sight. While European and other nations’ wines have more complex ‘rules,’ some basic information about American label design and required information will assist any shopper in making an appropriate purchase of domestic wines from among all those options.

Many bottles have both a back and front label. The front side contains the basic and federally-mandated information; the back label usually lists interesting facts and useful serving suggestions: sweetness levels, harvest parameters, vineyard data and / or winery history. Often the most useful material will be printed on the back.

By federal regulation, the front label must have a brand name, like Mastropietro Winery or Maize Valley Winery. It also must list the name and address of the producer, and the contents by volume. Traditional wine bottles contain 750 milliliters; the popular regional ice wines are usually put in half bottles, which hold 375 milliliters, but there are also larger and smaller sizes.

The front label must also identify the type of wine — table wine, ice wine, sparkling wine, etc. — and contain information about sulfites added, as well as a much-maligned health warning.

The wine’s name based on the grape variety in the bottle may be ‘Chardonnay’ or ‘Pinot Noir’ in the case of a varietal. Or they may choose proprietary names like The Vineyard at Pine Lake’s Columbiana Red or Country Porch’s Off Your Rocker. Both will be prominently displayed in the middle of the label.

Sometimes there is also a vineyard designation to give credit to a grower who produced exceptional fruit for the vintner. If the wine is grown on the property attached to the winery, the vintner is allowed to add the prestigious phrase ‘estate bottled.’ Other phrases, like ‘private reserve’ or ‘vineyard select,’ are used by wineries to connote their most special releases. If geographic words like ‘Lake Erie’ appear, the grapes that were crushed for that bottle must have been primarily grown in that region.

These regional designations are known as AVAs — American Viticultural Appellations — and are assigned to unique and identifiable growing regions by the federal government after a long and complex application process. If the label lists a ‘vintage’ date, at least 95% of its contents must come from grapes grown in that year.

Some wine labels contain beautiful artwork, actually akin to museum quality. Some are fun and funky. Others are more classic. Given the competitive nature of the wine business and the consumers’ general fear of picking a ‘wrong’ wine, small fortunes are invested in design and development of attractive wine packaging in the hopes that the bottles will jump out and grab the attention of an average shopper.

Reading an American wine label is fairly straight forward. But deciphering those European ones is much more complicated, and that is a story for a future column.

To talk all things wine, email Donniella at dwinchell@ohiowines.org.