83 WINES NAMED IN SUIT, 83 WINES REMAIN ON SHELVES
FOUR MONTHS ago you couldn’t get away from the news of the lawsuit alleging unsafe levels of arsenic in wine. Social media was in a frenzy as consumers wondered if their wines were toxic. But more than three months after the filing of a class-action lawsuit alleging that dozens of wines contain unsafe levels of arsenic, all 83 wine labels named in the suit remain on the shelves. No wineries issued recalls, and no retailers pulled wine from store shelves. The number one goal of the lawsuit, according to the attorneys who filed it, was to get the wines off store shelves. Rob Feldman, a spokesman for the attorneys, said he and his colleagues were disappointed the wine was not recalled. Nancy Light of the Wine Institute of California stated that a recall wasn’t necessary because the wine is safe. Furthermore, Light claimed, wine sales have not dropped as a result of the litigation. “This lawsuit is patently false and has been largely ignored by consumers once they learned the facts. Wines from around the world contain trace amounts of arsenic – as do fruits, vegetables, grains, water, juice, and other beverages – and do not pose a risk to consumers. The FDA has been testing the arsenic content in foods and beverages for more than 2O years and has not set a limit for wine because there is no evidence to suggest that the trace amounts put consumers at risk,” Light said.
Legal action is moving forward. The law firms involved are recruiting consumers to take part in the litigation. According to Feldman, they want to force wineries to “reimburse people who have used the wine,” although he doesn’t promise full reimbursement. The majority of wines listed in the lawsuit cost less than $1O a bottle. Arsenic is virtually everywhere around us. It’s found naturally in the air, soil and water, which explains how it ends up in wine. In Canada, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario tested more than 17,5OO wines from around the world, including more than 22OO from California. Globally, 99.6 percent of wines contain 25 ppb or less of arsenic. For California, the number is 99.2 percent.
