In November 2018, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) proposed amendments to government regulations that control labeling and advertising for alcoholic beverages, including wine, distilled spirits and malt beverages.
The proposed changes are meant to “simplify and clarify regulatory standards” and “reduce the regulatory burden on industry members.” In essence, the amendments aim to modernize alcohol industry regulations.
So what does that mean, exactly? The proposed amendment document is lengthy, so what follows is a brief overview of important label changes.
Key label-related proposed changes
Let’s take a look at some of the proposed label changes in the TTB’s amendments, as outlined by law firm Kleinfeld, Kaplan and Becker.
- Mandatory label information must be separated from descriptive or explanatory information.
- Brands will be given more flexibility on where mandatory information (like brand name, class and type, alcohol content, etc.) may appear.
- Manufacturers and importers must provide sufficient information to back up claims made in labeling or advertising. Otherwise, these claims will be considered misleading.
- There is no longer a prohibition against using the American flag and U.S. armed forces on labels.
- Misleading statements or representations about a product’s contents containing another commodity are restricted.
- Bottlers and importers must save label approval evidence for five years and it must be provided to a TTB officer if requested.
Beverage-specific label changes
Important wine label changes are as follows:
- Estate grown and estate bottled claims are differentiated.
- Restrictions on the use of vintage dates on wine imported in bulk and bottled in the U.S. are removed, as long as the bottler has documented proof supporting the vintage date.
- Rice wine is designated as a novel wine class, which describes standards for rice wines, including sake.
Distilled-spirit label changes include:
- The state of original distillation must be shown on labels of certain whiskies as well as, or instead of, the bottling address.
- Age statements on any spirit in or with oak are allowed. Excluded are neutral, non-grain spirits.
- The allowable alcohol content tolerance is expanded to be plus or minus 0.3 percentage points from the labeled alcohol content. This is a change from 0.15 percentage points.
A big change to malt beverage labels is that mandatory label information can be included on a keg collar or tab cover that’s not firmly affixed to a malt beverage keg, where the keg has a capacity of at least 10 gallons and the name of the brewer is stated on the keg.
Any companies affected by these changes will have three years to implement them, if they are finalized. The TTB says it is accepting comments on the proposal through March 26, 2019.
To stay up to date with changing regulations, and view our selection of label printers, go to Optimedia Labs’ U.S. page or our Canadian site.