The label Who checks the promises
Who checks that a wine label tells the truth?
Each promise on the label has to be answerable in writing, and the Act puts inspectors on the other side of the record. A promise the records do not support is an offence.
General information about Australian wine labelling law. Each rule names its source; check the regulator’s page before you rely on it.
85 of 100, and what the rest of the wine may be.
85 of 100, and what the rest of the wine may be.
85 of 100, and what the rest of the wine may be.
The Label Integrity Program
The checking has a name of its own: the Label Integrity Program, legislated as Part VIA of the Wine Australia Act 2013. Part VIA states its own object in one sentence.
The object of this Part is to advance the objects of this Act by helping to ensure the truth, and the reputation for truthfulness, of statements made on wine labels, or made for commercial purposes in other ways, about the vintage, variety or geographical indication of wine manufactured in Australia.
Wine Australia Act 2013 (Cth) s 39A, on the Federal Register of Legislation
The Part reaches everyone in the chain. The people who must keep records include the person who grows the grapes, the manufacturer of the wine goods, anyone who supplies or receives wine goods, including a seller by wholesale or retail and an exporter, and an agent who takes possession of wine goods for one of them. It applies to wine goods that originate in Australia. Section 39G narrows the duty. A person who grows grapes need not record, for the grapes grown, the date they were received, who they were received from, the quantity, or their vintage, variety and prescribed geographical indication. And a person who supplies or receives wine goods packaged for sale to a consumer, or an agent who takes possession of them for that person, and who has taken no step to change or affect any label claim before the sale, need not record the quantities received and supplied, the vintage, variety and prescribed geographical indication of the goods received and supplied, any steps that changed them, the date of supply, who the goods were supplied to, or other details the regulations prescribe. A person given a copy of a supply record must still keep that copy for seven years.
Wine Australia describes the obligation as one step forward and one step back, so that the vintage, variety and place on a label can be traced back to the vineyard. The Program prescribes the information that must be recorded, not the form the records take. Wine Australia states the keeping period as seven years. The Act requires a person who must keep supply entries for wine goods to give the receiver a copy of those entries on the day of supply.
The consequence of a record that does not hold up is not only a fine. Wine Australia says it can stop grape products being exported or sold where the records kept under the Program cannot substantiate a vintage, variety or geographical indication claim.
The record behind each promise
The Act sets out what a record must show. Among the details are the vintage, the variety and the prescribed geographical indication of the wine goods received, and the same three for the wine goods supplied, together with the dates, the quantities and the identity of the person on the other side of each transfer. A record is kept for a period that begins when the recorded event happens and ends seven years later, and where a person who must keep supply entries supplies the wine goods on, a copy of those entries goes with them on the day they are supplied. The table below follows the three promise words on the label down to the record that answers for each.
| On the label | The record behind it | Who may see it |
|---|---|---|
| Year | The vintage of the wine goods the record keeper receives, and of the wine goods the record keeper supplies. Where the wine is a blend of vintages, the proportion of the blend each wine represents and the vintage of each of them. | A Wine Australia inspector appointed under the Act, entering with the occupier’s consent; the Authority, by written notice. |
| Region | The prescribed geographical indication of the wine goods received and of the wine goods supplied, and, for a blend, the indication of each wine in it. | A Wine Australia inspector appointed under the Act, entering with the occupier’s consent; the Authority, by written notice. |
| Grape | The variety of the wine goods received and of the wine goods supplied, and, for a blend, the variety of each wine in it. | A Wine Australia inspector appointed under the Act, entering with the occupier’s consent; the Authority, by written notice. |
Inspection
Inspectors are appointed under the Act by Wine Australia, which says it appoints them to monitor compliance with the Program, and that a maker or seller may at any time be selected for an audit, which can be remote or in person.
For the purpose of finding out whether label laws are being complied with, an inspector may, with the consent of, and after producing the inspector’s identity card for inspection by, the occupier of wine premises, enter, and exercise inspection powers on, the premises.
Wine Australia Act 2013 (Cth) s 39ZC, on the Federal Register of Legislation
The Act gives the Authority a second route to the paperwork, away from the premises: a written notice requiring a person named on a wine label as its supplier to provide information about the records, or requiring a person the Authority has reason to believe holds or controls a record to produce it. The notice must give the person at least 14 days from the day it is served.
Offences under the Act
Two offences do the heavy lifting, and they are the ones a buyer can picture: selling, exporting or importing wine in trade or commerce with a false description and presentation, and doing the same with a misleading one. Each carries a penalty of imprisonment for two years.
A court may impose a maximum fine of 120 penalty units instead of, or in addition to, a term of imprisonment. A body corporate that is convicted of an offence may be fined up to 5 times that maximum fine.
Wine Australia Act 2013 (Cth) s 40C, note to the penalty, on the Federal Register of Legislation
The Act also defines the middle term the offences turn on: the description and presentation of wine is misleading if it is not in accordance with the provisions relating to description and presentation that are prescribed for that purpose. Wine Australia reads that section as the hinge for the blending rules, and says that failing to label geographical indications in line with the Regulations contravenes it, and that this is an offence.
Wine Australia states the penalty on its own pages as well: for each offence of selling, exporting or importing wine whose description and presentation is false or misleading, the maximum is two years in jail, or a fine of 120 penalty units in place of, or as well as, imprisonment.