What COLA Means in the Wine Industry

COLA in the wine business doesn't mean cost of living allowance, it means certificate of label approval. Over the weekend, we had a visitor to our winery who is a graduate student at Yale. During the course of our conversation, he mentioned that while he was in Indiana, we worked for the TTB. We are very familiar with the TTB because of our close encounters during our label approval process.
Before getting our label approval I was aware of all of the regulations that apply to a US label. Here is a table of the regulations according to the BATF, Wine Labels, Vintages and Wine Regions:

Category	%Grape Variety
Political Area i.e. State	If a state is on the label, then 75% of the grape variety must be grown in that state
AVA	If an American Viticultural area is on the label, then 85% of the variety must be from that AVA
Vineyard Designation	If a vineyard is on the label, then 95% of the grapes must come from the designated vineyard and the vineyard must also be in a designated AVA
Estate Bottled	If the label says estate bottled, then 100% of the grapes must come from vineyards owned or controlled by the winery (both must be in a designated AVA)
Grape Variety	If a grape variety is on the label, then 75% of the grapes must be of the stated variety
Vintage	If a vintage is on the label, then 95% of the grapes must come from the year stated
Produced/Made and bottled by	If the label includes produced/made and bottled by, then 75% of the grapes must be fermented, aged, and bottled at the indicated location
Cellared/vinted and bottled by	If the label includes cellared/vinted and bottled by, then it does not necessarily mean that the wine was fermented at the indicated location
Reserve	If the label includes the word reserve, that designation has no legal meaning in the U.S.

In addition to the above regulations, my husband and I ran into another rule that made our COLA take a little longer. When we were getting approvals for our white wines, there was no problem because all of our wines are 100% what variety they are on the label. However, when it came to making labels for our Cabernet sauvignon and Cabernet franc blend and our Cabernet sauvignon, Cabernet franc, and Barbera blend, the word "blend" threw a red flag. If a label contains the word "blend" then the percentage of the grapes that constitute the blend must be somewhere on the label. Winemakers can circumvent this regulation by calling their "blend" anything they want. Our friends at Paumanok call their blend Assemblage, which is very classy. Many wineries call their blend "Claret". Here is a recent wine that exemplifies that wording. It is from Linden Vineyards and their blend is called "Claret".

Jim Law chose to put the composition of his blend on the back label which tells you that the Claret is made of a blend of 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 16% Cabernet Franc and 4% Petit Verdot. However, by calling his blend "Claret" he doesn't necessarily have to disclose what the percentages of red varieties goes into his "Claret".
In our case, we decided to drop "blend" from our label. It simplifies our label.
Getting your COLA can be an arduous process unless you know the rules. Eventually we were approved for the COLA for our red wines blends!

Vintage 2026: June Activities

Here it is June already! This year, parts of our vineyard are looking good and other parts are looking not so good, by this I mean that we are still trying to lay some of our fruiting canes down on the fruiting wire. Meanwhile, shoot thinning is occuring in our reds. We are taking off excess shoots in the Barbera and the Cabernet Franc. Our vines are on a tall graft so we have to remove tons of excess shoots from that region. Here is an excample from the Cabernet Franc.

We do shoot thinning so that our canopy when it becomes mature will allow for air flow. It is one of the things that we as vineyard workers can do to keep our vines healthy. Shoot thinning creates what I call a trail of leaves.

I can attest to the fact that shoot thinning and removing excess shoots from our graft union is a time consuming task. However, one can come upon surprises like this bluebird nest in the graft union. This particular vine remained untouched so that the bluebird mommy can have her privacy. My husband also came upon what he thought was a black racer in a tree outside of the vineyard. These unexpected sightings make working in the vineyard interesting!

Update: my husband provided me with more accurate information about the snake in the tree, it is an eastern rat snake. Also, the nest is not a bluebird nest but a chipping sparrow nest.