126 of 288 wines carry a declared sulphur figure

The numbers behind the range

Publishing a figure on each bottle is one thing. Here is what those figures add up to.

Every wine we sell publishes its own credential record, so we can do something no other UK wine retailer can: add them up. Everything on this page is computed live from the same figures the product pages show, which means it moves as the range moves and it can never quietly disagree with a bottle.

Take it, quote it, argue with it. It is free to cite with attribution and a link, and the whole dataset is available as JSON.

Where a producer has not declared a figure we count it as not declared rather than estimating it, so every median below is drawn only from wines with a real number attached. Figures are producer or supplier declared, and we hold the data sheets.

Total SO2 across the range

Every wine with a declared figure, in milligrams per litre. The strictest published UK charters set their ceiling at 50 mg/l. UK law allows 150 in a conventional dry red.

10 mg/l and under 3

11 to 30 14

31 to 50 16

51 to 75 12

76 to 100 43

101 to 150 35

Over 150 3

Sulphur by tier

The Standard grades winemaking, not marketing, so the test of it is simple: the medians should fall as the tier tightens. Read down the column and hold us to it. Where a tier has few declared figures the median is drawn from that handful, which is why the count is printed next to it rather than hidden.

Tier	Wines	With a figure	Median SO2	Range	At or under 50
Natural	2	2	18 mg/l	11 to 25	2
Low intervention	90	68	71 mg/l	5 to 140	31
Sustainable	143	26	89.5 mg/l	61 to 134	0
Classically made	51	30	112.5 mg/l	71 to 185	0

Sulphur by farming

The question nobody in UK wine retail publishes an answer to, and the answer is not the one the category sells. Organic and biodynamic certification governs the vineyard, not the cellar, so on its own it barely moves the sulphur figure. That is the whole reason we grade farming and making as two separate things and never let one stand in for the other.

Farming	Wines	With a figure	Median SO2	Range	At or under 50
Certified or practising organic	81	29	82 mg/l	11 to 140	6
Biodynamic	15	4	49.5 mg/l	11 to 82	2
Neither declared	207	97	90 mg/l	5 to 185	27

Sulphur by colour

Whites and sweet wines carry more sulphur than reds as a rule, because tannin does some of the same protective work. Our range follows the pattern.

Colour	Wines	With a figure	Median SO2	Range	At or under 50
Red	117	51	80 mg/l	15 to 175	16
White	104	50	91 mg/l	11 to 151	8
Orange	12	2	52 mg/l	29 to 75	1
Rose	21	11	110 mg/l	60 to 126	0
Sparkling	24	9	18 mg/l	5 to 185	5

Fining

Whether a wine was clarified with animal derived agents, plant and mineral ones, or not at all. This is the whole of what makes a wine vegan or not.

No animal agents	139
Animal agents	4
Not declared	145

Bottle weights are reported separately, against the Sustainable Wine Roundtable Bottle Weight Accord, on the footprint page. The rules that produce the tiers above are set out in full on the Standard.