Rev. Rul. 55-169

Advice has been requested whether a wine importer may place on bottles of imported wine, labels identifying wholesale and/or retail distributors, even though such labels are not covered by the importer's Certificate of Label Approval, Form 1649.

The instructions on Form 1647, Application for Certificate of Label Approval Under the Federal Alcohol Administration Act, presently require that the complete set of labels to be used on any individual container must be submitted with this form. Form 1649, Certificate of Label Approval Under the Federal Alcohol Administration Act (which is issued pursuant to Form 1647), to which are affixed labels identical with those on Form 1647, authorizes only the use of such labels and others differing from them in certain specified respects, such as a change in the proportionate size of the labels or the statement of different net contents.

In order to avoid the constant resubmission of labels to cover sets of labels differing from previously approved labels only in that they contain an additional strip, shoulder, or other label merely identifying a wholesaler or retailer for whom the product was bottled or imported, bottlers and importers of distilled spirits, wines, and malt beverages may use sets of labels differing from sets of labels covered by certificates of approval in that there has been added an additional shoulder, strip, or other label bearing only the name, or name and address, of the wholesaler or retailer, preceded by sucy phrases as `bottled for,' `selected for,' `made for,' or `imported for,' and containing no references whatever to the characteristics of the product.

Forms 1647 and 1649 will be appropriately revised when they are reprinted.

Revenue Ruling 54-392, C.B. 1954-2, 585, superseded