Ireland’s alcohol warning plan may reduce range of wines available here, merchants say

Making wine producers put health warning labels on their product specifically for the Irish market is likely to reduce the range of wines available here, according to importers who spoke to The Irish Times.

Jonathan Mitchell has spent his working life with Mitchell & Son, a Dublin wine merchants founded by his great, great, great grandfather William Mitchell, in 1805. The business imports wine from around the world including from smaller wine producers in Bordeaux and Burgundy, and it is with such smaller producers that he sees the problem.

“I think some smaller producers won’t label their wine specifically for Ireland and this will lead to a diminution of the range,” he says. He would be in agreement with any health warning that was mandatory throughout the European Union.

New Irish regulations to put health warnings on alcohol products, signed into law in May, are due to come into effect in 2026. Ireland will become the first country in the world to introduce such mandatory labelling.

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The main concern of David Whelehan, director of Whelehan’s Wines, is also that some smaller producers will have a difficulty with putting labels on the back of bottles specifically for the Irish market.

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His business works with small wine producers around the world, some of which are run by people who don’t speak English.

“The reason for our existence, really, is finding wonderful wines that express the terroir or the real essence of each wine-producing region and that’s what we dedicate our time and our effort to.”

The business might import as little as one pallet (600 bottles) per year from some producers, so the requirement to attach a label saying alcohol causes cancer and other health messages specifically for the Irish market may not be worth the effort for them.

Whelehan also believes that some producers will not agree to do so on principle.

“Some of the wineries we work with are so prestigious, and I just can’t see how they will buy into it. They could be in the ninth or tenth generation of the same family, and suddenly we are requesting them to put these warning images on the back of the bottle,” he said.

He believes a more realistic way to get the message across about the danger of alcohol is to do so on a “macro” level, with measures such as advertisements on TV and the radio.

Françoise Gilley, who runs the Terroirs wine shop in Donnybrook, Dublin with her husband Sean, is originally from the Loire valley in France and has been working with wine since she began helping her uncle at local wine fairs as a child.

“There is nothing wrong with wine. It comes from the earth, the vines are deep-rooted, and if you have a good wine, it is full of minerals, full of goodness. It is healthy, [if consumed] in moderation of course.”

The Donnybrook shop has been in business since 1994 and sources wine from almost 200 “tiny” producers for whom putting health warning labels on the back of their bottles just for the Irish market, will create extra work and logistical challenges.

She has an image of what the proposed label might look like on her computer. “Drinking alcohol causes liver disease,” says one line in red letters. “There is a direct link between alcohol and fatal cancers,” says another.

Wine producers put a lot of effort into designing beautiful labels for their wine bottles, says her husband Sean.

“My feeling is that I have no problem with having warning signs at the back but it has to be done in a discreet way, not to take the enjoyment out of it and destroying a beautiful label that these vineyards have put time and effort into producing, [by] having a disastrous label at the back saying wine causes cancer. It has to be done in an appropriate way.”

For Françoise, having labels warning about cancer on wine bottles will take from people’s enjoyment of wine, and also take from the pleasure of selling it.

“There is so much effort and so much history in that bottle, and then you apply a back label that has no relationship with the product,” she says.