I just can't believe what I am seeing!

The picture as it appears on the website

After yesterday's little rant about a Californian journalist, today I am almost at a loss for words!

Like every denomination or appellation on earth our production is strictly controlled. We face tough rules and regulations that we are obliged to follow, some good, others not so good, but all designed to protect the end consumer.

In our own area, not only do we have the local D.O. office who control the vineyards, and every step of our production, through quality control to final bottling, but then we also have the local fraud office, who will ensure that your stock is correct, and that every bottle is labelled correctly etc., etc. In the case of the latter, the fraud office will even penalise you if the lettering on your label is just 1mm too big, or 1mm too small, or if your bodega address is not correct.

Now, as I have already stated, this is not exclusive to our region, and these regulations apply in pretty much every wine producing area in the world. So what's my point?

Well, yesterday evening Angela stumbled across a new website relating to the wines of our D.O. which even carries the name 'vino albariño' in it's web address. On face value the site looks innocuous enough, giving good detail about our region and it's sub zones. It also includes details of local hotels and restaurants, with many links to some useful websites around Galicia.

BUT THEN..... The part I could not believe.

They have a page that offers wine by mail order - they call it 'Artesan Wine', and they are selling it over the internet completely WITHOUT LABEL! (See photo above)

How can this be? Surely this must be illegal? Is there anyone out there who has ever seen this before, or who thinks that this is an acceptable practise? Your comments please!