List of CA Wines in Lawsuit

[NJCher]

As you may know, there is a lawsuit over arsenic levels in California wines.

This is important because arsenic is linked to cancer. Here is the list of wines, courtesy of Associated Press:

A FULL LIST OF THE 31 DIFFERENT WINE BRANDS NAMED IN THE LAWSUIT
The 83 bottles of wine cited in a lawsuit this week as having dangerously high levels of arsenic came from 28 California wineries and were bottled under 31 different brand labels.
Some of the labels included several different types of wine.
Acronym (GR8RW Red Blend)
Almaden (Heritage White Zinfandel, Heritage Moscato, Heritage Chardonnay, Mountain Burgundy, Mountain Rhine, Mountain Chablis)
Arrow Creek (Coastal Series Cabernet Sauvignon)
Bandit (Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon)
Bay Bridge (Chardonnay)
Beringer (White Merlot, White Zinfandel, Red Moscato, Refreshingly Sweet Moscato)
Charles Shaw (White Zinfandel).
Colores Del Sol (Malbec)
Glen Ellen by Concannon (Glen Ellen Reserve Pinot Grigio, Glen Ellen Reserve Merlot)
Concannon (Selected Vineyards Pinot Noir)
Cook's (Spumante)
Corbett Canyon (Pinot Grigio, Cabernet Sauvignon)
Cupcake (Malbec)
Fetzer (Moscato, Pinot Grigio)
Fisheye (Pinot Grigio)
Flipflop (Pinot Grigio, Moscato, Cabernet Sauvignon)
Foxhorn (White Zinfandel)
Franzia (Vintner Select White Grenache, Vintner Select White Zinfandel, Vintner Select White Merlot, Vintner Select Burgundy)
Hawkstone (Cabernet Sauvignon)
HRM Rex Goliath (Moscato)
Korbel (Sweet Rose Sparkling Wine, Extra Dry Sparkling Wine)
Menage A Trois (Pinot Grigo, Moscato, White Blend, Chardonnay, Rose, Cabernet Sauvignon, California Red Wine)
Mogen David (Concord, Blackberry Wine)
Oak Leaf (White Zinfandel)
Pomelo (Sauvignon Blanc)
R Collection By Raymond (Chardonnay)
Richards Wild Irish Rose (Red Wine)
Seaglass (Sauvignon Blanc)
Simply Naked (Moscato).
Smoking Loon (Viognier).
Sutter Home (Sauvignon Blanc, Gerwurztraminer, Pink Moscato, Pinot Grigio, Moscato, Chenin Blanc, Sweet Red, Riesling, White Merlot, Merlot, White Zinfandel)
Source: Associated Press


There's a good article at the San Francisco Chronicle:

http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/The-cheap-wine-you-re-drinking-may-hold-6147956.php

And here's the actual complaint:


https://irp-cdn.multiscreensite.com/f0533877/files/uploaded/Summons_Complaint.pdf


Cher

[NYC_SKP]

1. My complaint: Each one gave me a killer headache. Sulfides or IDK what.

[Auggie]

3. See what happens when you buy cheap wine?

[NJCher]

9. easy solution to that

Just pour the wine in a wide pitcher--even a glass measuring cup will do--and let the sulfites evaporate. Takes about 10-12 minutes.


Cher

[NYC_SKP]

11. Good to know, thanks!

I never knew, will share that with friends!

[Major Nikon]

2. I suspect the company filing the complaint will get countersued out of business

Here's my other post on the subject:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6398117

[Auggie]

4. Yes, it does sound bogus: the lab that tested the wines is in business to test for arsenic ...

From Forbes:

Arsenic And California Wine: Do You Need To Worry?

I am what I have termed a blue collar wine snob. I’m picky about my wine and am even a member of a wine club, but I rarely pay more than $10 a bottle, mainly because I drink about two bottles a week. So when I caught a headline about popular wines supposedly containing enough arsenic to eventually cause cancer, you can bet I raised an eyebrow. CBS News reported last Thursday that “very high levels of arsenic” showed up in almost a quarter of 1,300 wines tested by independent Denver-based lab BeverageGrades. “Very high,” according to BeverageGrades founder and former wine distributor Kevin Hicks, meant four to five times more arsenic than the EPA standard for drinking water, which is 10 parts per billion (ppb), or 10 micrograms per liter (mcg/L).

Among the top-selling wines with three, four and five times the 10 ppb standard were, respectively, Trader Joe’s Two-Buck Chuck White Zinfandel, Ménage à Trois Moscato and Franzia White Grenache. Hicks told CBS he noticed a trend of higher amounts of arsenic the cheaper the wine was on a per-liter basis.

The CBS report reads as alarmist — though they mention at the end that their own independent testing of four wines yielded arsenic levels above 10 ppb but much lower than BeverageGrades’ results — and Hicks clearly finds these results concerning enough that he’s filing a class action suit against more than two dozen wine makers and sellers for their unsafe products. He’s also, by the way, marketing his company’s testing services to wine makers who might be concerned about… arsenic in their wine. This news report and lawsuit could easily be seen as creating one’s own demand. But if we assume the BeverageGrades’ results are correct — a big “if” since the results have not been independently confirmed, the company has not described its methods, and the company is simultaneously attempting to sell winemakers its services after creating a news story — how much should you be concerned if you’re a regular wine drinker?

The shortest answer, according to Kenneth Spaeth, MD, chief of occupational and environmental medicine at the North Shore-LIJ Health System in Great Neck, NY, is we don’t know yet.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tarahaelle/2015/03/23/arsenic-and-california-wine-do-you-need-to-worry/

[Major Nikon]

5. Exactly. I pointed that out in my other post

This same lab posted an advertisement soliciting it's testing service to retailers coincident with the filing of the lawsuit. Kinda makes you go, hmmmmm.

[Auggie]

6. Yes, you did. Smaller producers and negociants don't have much $ to countersue, but the big guys,

like Costellation, Trefethan and Boisset, do.

[dolphinsandtuna]

7. there's a lot of arsenic in the ground in parts of California

Unless you have your backyard tested safe and grow your own or ship food in, you pretty much will have arsenic exposure. Note the prevalence in the Central Valley agricultural area.

[azurnoir]

8. from the sfgate article got my attention a curious wine idusty 'employee' had 1306 wines tested?!?

that's mighty curious indeed

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are four individual wine consumers from Southern California. A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Brian Kabateck, said Friday that the suit stemmed from a former wine industry employee who was “curious” about arsenic levels and had 1,306 wines tested.

http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/The-cheap-wine-you-re-drinking-may-hold-6147956.php

[NJCher]

10. if I have a choice

I'm going to choose not to put arsenic in my system.

Regardless of the motivation of the testing lab (and according to attribution theory, none of us can really know or state another's motivation), arsenic was found--enough that they are willing to put it into the court as proof.

On my last trip to the wine store, I went with Australian wines. I did research to see if I could turn up anything on arsenic and Australian wines, but so far, I haven't turned up anything.

Yes, it was a little more expensive, but as they say about matters of health, you can pay now or you can pay later.

I'm very disappointed with this development. I had a CA wine I really enjoyed and which I bought on a regular basis for the not-so-special occasions. I'm lucky enough to have a wine connoisseur as a partner who chooses the special occasion wines.

The CA wine I enjoyed is mfr'd by a company in Ripon, but who is to say where they buy their grapes? This company isn't on the list on the OP. I'd like to know which companies they tested and that did not show arsenic.

Maybe I'll contact the testing lab with that question.


Cher

[NJCher]

12. Here's what I don't understand

I just got home from the wine store and I was looking at Fisheye, which says it is Australian. Fisheye pinot is listed above.

But I thought these were just California wines.

I don't understand how a California importer can import an Australian wine and it has arsenic.

I asked the wine store manager about this, and he said Fisheye is just a marketing company that buys wines from all over.

Do you think that explains it? I still don't quite get how that could happen.

Anyway, I left the store with a couple Italian wines.



Cher