A lovely grenache with a hint of arsenic

The headlines are enough to make wine lovers blush: “Arsenic found in popular California Wines,” ran a raft of media stories earlier this month. Levels of the toxic element – up to four times that recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency for drinking water – were found in nearly 50 wines, ranging from Mogen David to Ménage á Trois, “Two-Buck Chuck” to the more prestigious R Collection by Raymond.

Beverage Grades, a wine analysis lab in Denver, tested 1,300 bottles of wine, found that almost a quarter had what they believed to be excessive levels of arsenic. The EPA allowable amount in drinking water is 10 parts per billion (10 ppb), and levels above that were implied to be harmful, dangerous or toxic.

Some prime offenders: Charles Shaw White Zinfandel registered 31 ppb; Ménage á Trois Moscato tested out at 40.5 ppb; and a box of Franzia White Grenache rang the bell at 50.7 ppb. Though there is no EPA recommended level for arsenic in wine, the implication was that these wines are dangerous by EPA standards.

The first question is: Who drinks this stuff anyway? Most of the wines are budget-priced, some commonly sold in 1.5 litre jugs (Almaden) or 4-litre boxes (Bandit, Franzia). Many are varietals or styles that cause true oeniphiles to turn up their well-trained noses – white grenache, pink zinfandel, or Beringer’s “refreshingly sweet moscato.”

Then there’s another question: Who is Beverage Grades and what is their goal? Self-described as a “private, independent third party lab which tests wines, beers and spirits,” the Denver-based lab last rose into public view less than a year ago, when their website offered services and apps that compared the chemical components of thousands of wines so consumers can substitute less-expensive bottles for pricier big-name brands. (Their CopyCat app is apparently no longer available.)

CBS This Morning, which broke the story March 19 in a Charlie Rose-hosted segment, interviewed co-founder Kevin Hicks, dressed in a white lab coat to give the report an air of respectability. (CBS’s previous wine news coverage suggested putting a cheap $7 red through a blender so it tasted better.) Hicks said he took the test results to wine companies, who “almost hung the phone up on me.”

Next Hicks contacted a lawyer, and within days Kabateck Brown Kellner, LLP, filed a class action lawsuit in California accusing more than 28 California winemakers and sellers of misrepresenting their wine as safe. Their accusation is that the defendants “produce and market wines that contain dangerously high levels of inorganic arsenic, in some cases up to 500 percent or more than what is considered the maximum acceptable safe daily intake limit.” (You can find out more about the lawsuit at taintedwine.com.)

The wine industry wasted little time striking back. The first to do so was Trinchero (Ménage á Trois, Bandit and others), whose statement was printed on the CBS News website with the original video report. “We have been working very closely with the California Wine Institute and other wineries to quickly assess and resolve this situation which has created unnecessary fear among wine drinkers. This is an industry wide issue, and we take it very seriously and intend to dispute it aggressively,” their statement read in part.

Christopher Lehane, a spokesman for the Wine Group, another of the producers mentioned in the list (Glen Ellen is now one of their brands, as is Concannon, Franzia and others) noted that Canada’s stated limit for wine was 100 ppb – half of the highest found in that Franzia White Grenache, and 10 times the EPA benchmark for drinking water.

The association of wine with arsenic is almost the stuff of popular culture – or it was in the 1940s. Joseph Kesselring’s play “Arsenic and Old Lace” ran on Broadway for three years and was made into a hit 1944 film starring Cary Grant. It concerned two sweet little old ladies who would invite gentlemen lodgers to tea, and for one reason or another decide that a little elderberry wine laced with arsenic was in order.

“We put it in wine because it’s less noticeable,” said one of the aunties in the play. “When it’s in tea, it has a distinct odor.”

Effects of arsenic are not to be laughed at, however. Several types of cancer, including bladder, lung and skin cancer, can result from overexposure to arsenic. Even the so-called safe limit in drinking water, 10 ppb, can over time result in 1 death in a thousand, according to a 1999 National Academy of Sciences report. Damage to organs like liver and the kidneys and the nervous system can also result from arsenic poisoning.

Arsenic is a naturally occurring element often found in soil, especially in association with eroding volcanic rock, and at high levels in certain foods, including prawns, oysters and other shellfish and vegetables such as Brussels sprouts. It may even be an essential element in our diet in very low doses, like the similar element selenium, though at extremely high concentrations it can be fatal.

But is it likely a wine-drinker could consume a lethal dose even by quaffing the cheapest, most toxic wine on the list? Dr. Michael Mullins, a medical toxicologist interviewed by USA Today, said it would take 20,000 glasses of Franzia White Grenache to reach fatal toxicity.

Noted Forbes contributor Tara Haelle, “If you’re drinking 2 liters of wine a day, you’ve got bigger problems than just the arsenic levels in your wine.”

There’s another side to the story, though: even allowing for the presence of arsenic in wine, however much or however dangerous, how does it get into the end product anyway? There are two possible ways: irrigation and fining agents.

Nobody likes a cloudy glass of wine – a polished clarity is one of the appealing visual characteristics of fine wine, even cheap wine. Adding a fining agent to remove suspended particles in an early stage of its settling helps clarify the liquid, and one of the most commonly used is the clay compound known as bentonite.

Bentonite is derived from clay and often does contain other earth elements, including lead and arsenic. Since the wines on the list are for the most part inexpensive, mass-produced, and either white or rose, it’s not a great leap to suggest that their production cycle includes a healthy dose of a fining agent like bentonite.

The other potential source of arsenic is less salubrious: groundwater. High concentrations of arsenic are known in several parts of the world to have adverse effects on human health – Bengladesh, Nova Scotia, and the California Central Valley are three such areas.

In the Central Valley, as well as its natural occurrence, it may be connected with the extensive agricultural use of fertilizers. Filmmakers from the Environmental Coalition for Earth Justice, in the documentary “Thirsty for Justice,” visited communities in the Central and Salinas valleys where groundwater has been contaminated by poisons in agricultural run-off, including arsenic, to such an extent that schools were closed and bottled water had to be shipped into towns for drinking, cooking and even bathing.

Take another look at that list of “tainted wines” and don’t be surprised if you see more wines from the Central Valley than the Sonoma Valley, or Napa, or Mendocino. If you’re worried about ingesting arsenic, look to your food sources rather than your wine.

‘If you’re drinking 2 liters of wine a day, you’ve got bigger problems than just the arsenic levels ...’