The EC’s allowed levels are 160mg per liter for white wine, 210 mg per liter for red and 260 mg per liter for sweet wine – with the exception of Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese.

I appreciate the input so much and love the detail – as do the readers.

I also got an answer for you on your question re sulphur and organic wines – from Johan Delport, winemaker at Waverley Hills Organic Wines & Olives. http://www.waverleyhills.co.za

See below

An organic wine cannot be 100% sulphur free. Sulphur is used as a preservative and anti-oxidant in wine. In wine sulphur is used in the form of sulphur dioxide (SO2). The legally correct term to use and the phrase that must be on the label of ‘sulphur free’ wines are No Sulphites Added.

The formation of sulphites is a natural by-product of the fermentation process during wine making, although it is in very small quantities. Therefore no wine can be sulphur free. To make a wine with this classification, you are not allowed to add SO2; hence the phrase No Sulphites Added.

These wines do have a disadvantage to conventional wines when it comes to preservation and maturation. All wines do have natural compounds that also act as preservatives, like tannins (more in red wine that white wine), alcohol and a relative low pH and high acidity. Sulphur, however, is the best preservative. Wines with no sulphites added will not age as good as conventional wines and depending on the type of wine will have to be consumed within one to three years from harvest. You will also see that certain stockist of wines with no added sulphites will put a best before date on the wine.

Not all organic wines are ‘sulphur free’. There are actually a very limited number of organic wine producers that does have wines available with no sulphites added. We at Waverley Hills are one of those brave people to do that.

What makes an organic wine different from a conventional wine? We are not allowed to use any chemical pesticides and herbicides in our vineyards and also no chemical additives in our wines. This excludes the use of SO2 as a preservative. However, the levels of SO2 allowed in organic wines are lower than in conventional wines. A conventional wine may have up to 160mg/l of Total SO2 present in wine. Where organic wine may have between 70 and 100 mg/l of Total SO2 present in the wine, depending on the country where it is being sold. Total SO2 is just the form it is measured in. SO2 is also present in wine in other forms, i.e. free, bound and molecular. For the sake of this reply, I am not going into the technical differences between the forms of SO2.

All wines are preserved with sulphur, even organic wines, except if the labels states No Sulphites Added. Certain wine labels states that there are sulphites added in the wine, but even the ones that have nothing on it also have sulphites added. Presently it is not enforced by law that a producer must state that there are sulphites added in a wine, but that is about to change. In due course all wines with added sulphites will have printed on the label – ‘Sulphites Added’.

For people that suffer from asthma and migraines, it is better to drink organic wines because of its lower sulphite levels. It is even better for these people to drink wines with no added sulphites.

Johan Delport
Winemaker – Waverley Hills Organic Wines

Another excellent source of interesting wine labels can be found on http://www.winelabels.org. The owner of the site (Peter May) also wrote Marilyn Merlot and the Naked Graped with a collection of interesting wine labels.