In the fall of 2021, Wine Growers Canada (WGC) launched an interactive initiative, The Right Amount, to encourage the safe and responsible consumption of wine. The initiative aims to ensure that more Canadians know what a standard drink is and respect the guidelines for low risk drinking, offering them resources to inform educated choices as to how much they choose to drink, or not to drink at all, on a given occasion.
The website’s online standard drink calculator is integral to helping Canadians make informed decisions about their wine consumption, enhancing understanding of what a standard drink looks like.
In Canada, a standard drink refers to 13.45 grams of alcohol. The Canadian government recommends that men do not go over 15 standard drinks per week, and women stay within a maximum of 10 standard drinks a week. The website’s widget helps consumers select the alcohol content and volume of wine consumed, before indicating how many standard drinks this equates to. For example, a 142 ml (5 oz) glass of 12 per cent wine is one standard drink, while a 177 ml (6 oz) glass of 13 per cent wine is 1.4 standard drinks.
Restaurants and bars offer a range of pour sizes, typically from 5 oz to 9 oz for table wine, and alcohol content can vary from less than 10 per cent to 16 per cent, so WGC hopes this tool helps increase standard drink awareness among Canadians and, in turn, helps them stick to their goals, whether these are serving-related, calorie-related or otherwise.
The initiative aims to ensure that more Canadians know what a standard drink is and respect the guidelines for low risk drinking, offering them resources to inform educated choices as to how much they choose to drink, or not to drink at all, on a given occasion.
The Right Amount campaign has been so successful that earlier this year, WGC decided to expand the website to engage and inform Canadians on calories and sugar content in wine. The commitment to healthy living (while still enjoying the occasional glass of wine) is a personal lifestyle choice, so whether someone is looking to inform him or herself on standard drinks and responsible consumption, or has a goal to address sugar or calorie intake, The Right Amount is now home to information on both elements.
Calorie and sugar content vary for multiple reasons, including the ripeness of the grape crushed, the type of wine and the alcohol content of the wine. Generally speaking, dryness is a good indicator of calorie content in a wine. Just like food, sweetness is a good clue to sugar content, indicative of residual sugar in the wine. Though grapes have natural sugars, fermentation converts most of those sugars into alcohol. Any sugar leftover in the wine is called residual sugar, hence the sweeter taste on the palate. The website’s interactive widget allows Canadians to find out the average amount of sugar and calories found in a standard serving of wine by wine type.
As the campaign continues to engage and inform Canadians, WGC invites wineries to consider supporting the initiative by integrating standard drink labelling or a QR code onto their wine labels, to support consumer education and awareness of moderate consumption. Design resources are available, including postcards, social media content, neck tags and labels that provide information about the contents of the wine, standard drinks or a link to the website. The label resources are easy to download in different colours and formats, and are available in either English, French, or as bilingual logos and labels.
All of these resources, accessible at resources.therightamount.ca/design-resources, are provided to help wine producers and other industry stakeholders raise awareness of The Right Amount initiative, and to help consumers make an informed choice when it comes to responsible consumption.
