!["Wine [is] not governed by the FDA ... so there’s just no transparency."](https://www.thecooldown.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/image-149.jpg)
When holding up a glass of wine for a toast, many say "to good health." As lovely as that is, Cameron Diaz and her business partner Katherine Power came to the realization — over a glass of wine — that the wine in your glass may be contributing to anything but good health.
In a YouTube video from the 2024 Upfront Summit, they discuss why they launched Avaline, their organic clean wine brand.
"We were all buying organic groceries, and nontoxic household products, and clean beauty," Power says, "and we were sitting there and we were drinking wine, and we thought … what's in this bottle?"
She explains that when they turned the bottle around to look at the label, they were reminded that "wine is one of the only consumables where you have no nutritional facts; you have no ingredients. It's not governed by the FDA; it's governed by the TTB [Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau], so there's just no transparency."
Diaz adds that they can look at the ingredients of everything else they consume; if there's something they don't like, they don't consume it. So it didn't make sense to them that they knew nothing about what was actually in their bottle of wine or the farming practices used to get it from grape to glass.
She points out that many people prefer organic farming practices, but it was "almost impossible to identify whether or not a vineyard farmed with chemicals" — like Roundup, for example. Power adds that when they founded their company in 2018, it was believed that 90% of vineyards in the United States farmed with harmful chemical pesticides.
Long-term exposure to chemical pesticides has been linked to multiple health issues, including increased risks of cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Some can even act as endocrine disruptors, potentially leading to reproductive problems and developmental issues.
Aside from harming human health, pesticides can contaminate soil, waterways, and wildlife, disrupting ecosystems and harming nontarget species, including pollinators that protect our food supply.
Diaz and Power say that, with all this in mind, they set out to understand what was in their glass. Their journey to answer the question led to the creation of Avaline — "delicious, organically farmed wines full of natural goodness and free from unwanted and undisclosed extras."
So grab a bottle, pour a glass, and cheers to good ingredients and good health.
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