Arsenic in Wine?

Our last two posts both concerned healthful benefits from drinking wine in moderation.  Now we're doing a one-eighty after learning last Thursday that some wines contain arsenic of all things.  What gives?  Just how does that happen?

Before we get too creeped out let's consider the extent of the problem.  First of all, while the United States does not regulate arsenic levels in wine, other countries do.  Our neighbor to the north, Canada, sets a standard of 100 parts per billion as its acceptable level.  America regulates arsenic in drinking water at ten parts per billion.  In the lawsuit filed in California that prompted the media to explode on the issue, the water standard was used as a proxy for our lack of wine purity regulations.  The worst arsenic-laced wine offender cited, Franzia boxed White Grenache, had fifty parts per billion, outrageous by the water standard but just half of the threshold set by Canada.

So how does the poison get into wine in the first place?  Organic arsenic is in soils and that is what most countries would find acceptable in minute amounts in wine.  Inorganic arsenic is a by-product of industrial farming and large scale wine making and a hundred times more toxic than the organic type.  Inorganic arsenic can cause many health problems with cancers of the liver and kidneys being among the worst.  In the problematic wines cited, the inorganic arsenic in pesticides may not have been filtered out in the wine making process.  Conversely, since the problematic wines were all inexpensive whites and blush/roses, it could be that the chemicals used to filter and clarify those wines may have been the contaminants themselves.

So on the one hand, the problem of inorganic arsenic in wine is serious and should be exposed. As I said in a Facebook post, "Shame on the producers (for allowing the current situation)."  I read somewhere that four or five glasses daily of the Franzia wine mentioned above would most likely result in serious health problems from the arsenic content.  On the other hand, I also read that apple juice, rice, brussel sprouts, and dark meat fish like tuna and salmon have similar problems with arsenic so it may all be way overblown.

1306 bottles of wine were tested in the study exposing the arsenic.  Eighty-three exceeded the water contamination standard.  Most were two, three, or four times the standard.  The tested wines represented 75% of the wines consumed in America and all were produced by the $23 billion dollar California wine industry.  None of the contaminated wines have ever been sold at Vine & Cheese, by the way.  But being a blue collar guy in the industry, it does bother me that the largest wine companies in the world can't self-regulate well enough to at least avoid the appearance of impropriety.    

Join us on Friday the 27th after 5pm when Teri Skaggs of United Distributors presents Spanish wines from Raimat and Codorniu at our weekly event.  I have known Teri for more than twenty-five years and look forward to hearing her share her accrued product knowledge.  Rest assured, Friday night's wines will be pure!

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