Ministers hope that the first new-style advice on alcohol consumption will start appearing on bottles of wine next year, even though negotiations continue about what will appear on the label. Officials at the Department of Health expect the whole industry to abide by a voluntary code on warnings that will appear even on grands crus from the great French vineyards.

A bottle of Château Lafite-Rothschild will be expected to advise consumers to know their limit and provide guidance for seeking help, just as will the more affordable Le Piat d’Or, although cost probably rules out binge drinking among those partial to great clarets and burgundies.

The Government also began the first national alcohol awareness campaign today with a series of television and cinema advertisements.

Whitehall officials said that the initial focus for health warnings would be the big suppliers to supermarkets but they then expected it to extend to small foreign-based brewers of beer and fine wines imported from abroad. Under the plans a specific part of the label on the back of every bottle of wine will contain advice, including basic health information, units of alcohol and where a drinker can get advice and support.

Jeremy Beadles, chief executive of the Wine and Spirits Trade Association, said that proposals would put a considerable burden on small wine producers, particularly as the labels would have to be made for the British market.

He said that there was not a great deal of space on the back of labels because new EU rules would soon require the ingredients and nutritional value of alcoholic drinks to be displayed. In France labels will soon be carrying a logo of a pregnant woman with a cross through it as a way of warning of the dangers of drinking during pregnancy.

French vineyard owners greeted the campaign as a fresh attack on their trade. Hélène Lévêque, owner of Château de Chategrive in Bordeaux, denounced the move as ridiculous and said that the wine industry was “being massacred for the sake of a minority of alcoholics”.

She said: “I am totally against this attempt to over- protect people. It’s all going too far. The British have always been good wine drinkers. They are knowledgeable and they are happy to drink. I hope that is not going to change now.”

Leading article

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Litvinenko murder suspect's peace offer
• Low rollers seize chance to scoop £5m on the nose
• I wish I were Chancellor now, says Ken Clarke