Don Sebastiani & Sons Disputes Lawsuit Arsenic Test

EDITOR’S NOTE: Don Sebastiani & Sons sent the following statement to Wine Industry Insight. It is presented here in its entirety with several paragraphs relocated to move significant information higher. Additional paragraph breaks have been added for readability. No changes were made in wording or punctuation.

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On Thursday, March 19, CBS This Morning aired a report concerning unsubstantiated allegations from class action lawyers that many everyday wines may be harmful to one’s health.

On the broadcasts, CBS News stated it had conducted its own testing on four wines for an unhealthy element listed in the filing and the “levels were all considerably lower” than the alleged Denver lab’s results.

Don Sebastiani & Sons makes and bottles more than 100 different wines every vintage.

One wine, Smoking Loon 2011 California Viognier was singled out in this report.

None of our other wines were mentioned. This Viognier has also been sold for many years in Canada, where it undergoes annual testing and analysis for the element in question to ensure a safe product. All of our wines subject to this testing have always passed.

Our own independent tests of our Smoking Loon wines found no elevated levels of the unhealthy element that should cause a consumer concern.

The allegations were based on wine analysis conducted by a Denver-based lab. The testing methods and protocols have not been peer-reviewed nor confirmed and the lab has still not provided any specific results from the wines in question.

Wine is a product of nature, and that means, upon analysis, minute quantities of many naturally occurring substances may be found in any particular bottle.

We will vigorously defend our brands against these allegations. We encourage you to relax and enjoy a bottle of Don Sebastiani & Sons wine tonight.