You can run, but you can't hide.

From Gary Vaynerchuk to Barack Obama, leaders are pushing boundaries and utilizing technology to bring increased transparency to a range of industries. While government labeling law remains the subject of intense debate and political maneuvering, the ability to discover information about a range of products is growing daily. And it couldn't come at a better time. In the agricultural sector consumer demand for better information is driven by regular reports of ecoli, salmonella and other unsafe foodstuffs. As an agricultural product, wine is likely to be subject to the same demands for disclosure of provenance. Some producers are already beginning to inform consumers of the ingredients used in the wine-making and grape-growing process. But the benefits of increased transparency extend beyond sustainability advocates and will someday allow a wine lover to assess quality by something other than a pretty label.

Wine, like many agricultural products, exists in a backwards world. The farmers and producers who have a sense of stewardship and try to work in harmony with nature have to prove it and those who use petro-chemical based fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides are at liberty to disclose nothing. Some argue that farming regulations are stringent enough to protect the public health, but "food safety" guidelines are subject to extreme manipulation by industrial agri-business. Hence, it is illegal in many places to buy milk from your neighboring dairy farm, even if the scientific evidence indicates it is probably safer from a human health perspective than that which meets the so called guidelines.

Organic and biodynamic certifications, while perhaps improving a consumers idea of the farming and wine-making practices still leave much to be desired. For example, USDA organic standards require no added sulfites, but make no distinction between potassium-bisulfite used during fermentation and sulphur added at bottling. These two methods of employing a preservative have dramatically different results in the percentage free sulfites in the wine itself. Disclosure of free sulfites in parts per million would allow consumers to compare apples to apples. The certifications themselves often further confuse the issue, with many consumers believing that wines made from organically grown grapes are free from additives in the cellar. This confusion is likely to persist, as regulators fumble around the issue supported by corporate wine marketers who have a stake in obfuscating the process of wine-making. On the other hand, demands for sustainability will encourage green-washing. The debate will remain vociferous on both sides for years to come with extremist arguments from both industrial and natural camps.

While not completely free of controversy, there is much less debate about the methods of making great wine. Low yields per vine, no irrigation, careful pruning, natural farming, and hand-harvesting are some of the practices in the vineyard that go a long way to determining quality. There are also common cellar techniques associated with superior wines: native yeast fermentation usually indicate healthy vineyards, ripe grapes are preferred to sugar additions, oak barrels over tannin powders, gravity instead of pumping and careful racking over heavy filtration. Disclosing the details of the process would enable consumers to make a more informed wine buying choice.

The issue is quality, not an esoteric debate about natural versus industrial wine-making. A trip to a natural wine fair showed me that naturalness is no substitute for clean cellars, temperature control and efforts to preserve acidity and prevent oxidation. A visit to a certified biodynamic winery in reminded me that certifications also have very little relationship to quality. Certification does not prevent irrigation, over-cropping or mechanical harvesting. Increased transparency in agriculture and wine specifically, will benefit truly sustainable wine producers, but the biggest winners will be consumers who appreciate fine wine. Disclosure of what happens to a wine before it is in your glass benefits both people who are concerned about sustainability and those primarily concerned with taste.

While government labeling law will likely take years to catch up to the level of transparency online, increased disclosure is inevitable. Just as people will want to know how and where their beef was raised before they pull their hybrid up to the drive-thru window, wine drinkers will want to know how and where the grapes were grown and what the process was in the cellar before they click the order button.