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What does the code on my wine bottle mean ?

Nowadays nearly every bottle of wine has a unique International Standard Wine Number (ISWN). The International Standard Wine Number is the worldwide standard that uniquely describes any bottle of wine with a single code.

The ISWN number is allocated by the ISWN Organization on the basis of a global reference database of wine producers and wines worldwide.

The format of the ISWN or ISWN-B is a string of 23 characters.

It is a series of sub-codes, each representing a key characteristic of a bottle of wine:

Practical example

From ISWN #71009002180011996007500, we can derive that it is a standard 75 ml bottle of South African Cabernet Sauvignon by Thelema Winery, 1996 vintage.

The ISWN is composed as:

For more information, see the ISWN webpage : http://www.iswn.org