(Wines&Vines) - Treasury Wine Estates (TWE) recently announced an initiative to provide calorie counts for all of its wines starting with the 2016 vintage. One of the world’s largest wine producers, TWE owns Australia’s legendary Lindemans, and bottles an estimated 3.5 million cases annually at its United States brands, including Beringer Vineyards, Chateau St. Jean Winery & Vineyards, Etude Wines and Stags' Leap Winery. 

Given the opposing harvest seasons, the calorie counts will begin with the Southern Hemisphere and continue later in the year in Northern Hemisphere wines. The recent media release left some questions unanswered, however.

Wines & Vines contacted Carolyn Coon, TWE’s senior corporate communications manager, to clarify. First, although back labels will include links to supply calorie counts for each brand, varietal and vintage, the numbers will not appear on the labels themselves.

“Consumers are increasingly looking online for this type of information,” Coon said. “Therefore it is the most logical platform to provide calorie information. Providing our calorie information online also gives us flexibility to be able to update calorie information outside of the labeling process.”

Since all wines marketed in the U.S. require TTB-approved Certificates of Label Approval (COLAs), this makes sense from a production point of view. Consumers who genuinely are concerned about the caloric content of their current tipple can do their research via the provided links.