Ideal Bite

San Francisco's an hour away from wine country, so it makes sense that our office is full of wine snob-I mean, connoisseurs. But whether you're a connoisseur, or hate the stuff and just keep a bottle of pinot noir in your pantry in case of unexpected wino guests, it still helps to know what some of the vocab words on the label stand for.

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms is the government department that handles wine labeling, and it's created four categories of green vino:

1.       100% organic wine is made from 100% certified-organic grapes grown on an organic farm, and doesn't contain any added sulfites (a preservative in most wines).

2.       Organic wine contains at least 95% organically grown grapes from an organic farm, without added sulfites.

3.       Made with organic grapes means the wine has at least 70% organic grapes. Added sulfites are allowed.

4.       Contains organic grapes just tells you the wine contains some level of organic grapes (less than 70%), and producers can add sulfites.

-Toshio...off to drink a beer...

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