More Cognac Labelling Requirements – Calories and Nutrition?
An EU Commission report has been welcomed by the drinks industry as, 2 years after MEPs voted for compulsory calorie labelling on alcoholic drinks, they have called upon the drinks trade to present a self-regulatory solution. Within 12 months calorie and nutritional information must be available to alcohol consumers – a ruling that came into effect for all other food and 
beverages in 2011. Will cognac labelling have to change? Aware that label space is an issue, the WSTA is suggesting that hosting the information on-line rather than on-pack will be the most effective solution. It has offered alcohol calorie information on its website for the past 2 years. Nutritional information will perhaps be more of a challenge – should it include the ingredients that go into the production of the spirit or just the elements that can be identified in the bottle prior to sale? For small craft cognac producers, this will be an onerous task as each individual vintage or batch will have to be tested. For the big cognac houses, who produce masses of one blend, the task is relatively straight forward. However, they will no longer be able to hide from consumers the number and quantity of additives such as sugar syrup and caramel that are present.