<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

I'm getting some responses, but more people are making contacts, & so the jury is still out on this one. Aside from people telling me they don't react to wine and hope there's no wheat in it....here's what I've been getting....

Don't beat me up on this first one. After reading his first response (which I posted already)...this is his second...I sent him information from the CSA website, including the FDA proposal link that is shooting for 20ppm and CSA wanting less. I also told him that foods saying gf are increasing...but label size is not. He and I have been having a very good dialogue. He's not being belligerent, but thought-provoking. Note the mention of egg whites. It's in the information I got from websites on wheat in wine. See posts from other people a couple of weeks ago that started this whole thing. 

1.From a NJ  vintner:   
I think the most logical solution would be to figure out how many parts per million would effect a person with Celiac.  My guess is that it would be at least 100 to 1000 parts per million.  In a few glasses of wine, this would be an extremely small amount.  The FDA does provide good support in these circumstance but sometimes they can be unreasonable.  To list the amount of trace elements in a food product (below 1part per million) we would need to employ a full time chemist and I would guess that our wine label would need to be the size of legal document in order to list everything that could possibly result.  There would be very few food products on the market if this were the law.  

Egg whites are commonly used in winemaking which may have caused some concern.  However, their purpose is to attract particulates in wine in order to clarify.  The egg whites are then discarded or filtered out.  Posts that you read on the internet probably do not comprehend how egg whites are used; thus creating an unnecessary concern.

Again, if less than 100 - 1000 parts per million of wheat product do not effect Celiac, you should not be at all concerned.  If you find this information from your doctor I think most of your concerns will be relieved.  I will contact our barrel supplier as well, but if wheat product is used, we still will not know what part per million is in our final product (if any).  I doubt there is even any way for us find out without the type of equipment used in high-tech state-of-the-art research facilities.  If FDA changes their regulations to list infinite trace elements, you will find only a few large conglomerate wineries will survive this type of legislation and every small food manufacturer and farm in the nation will go out of business.
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2. Lin, I contacted a wine-maker friend of mine in Mendocino some time 
back when this first came up.  I cannot seem to find my original 
correspondence with them, but they said that the use of wheat paste 
to seal the barrels is, in fact, not ancient, but quite common. 
However, the paste becomes very hard, and the barrels are used again 
and again, such that the paste does not seem to show or come through 
on the inside of the barrel.

I would say the only way to know is to do a PPM test on wine that has 
been aged in this type of barrel.  Of course I personally have no 
idea how to perform such a test, or how to get any wine maker to do 
so either.  I expect this is why the subject isn't carried out 
further on the list.  No one really knows how to evaluate the 
situation.

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3. The one person from a winery in Michigan I asked thought it was hilarious. I was in a wine producing area and could have called them all.  Perhaps that should be my new hobby, calling all of the wineries in areas we vacation in. And I drink wine without any signs of gluten contamination.  Perhaps only very old, traditional companies stick to the flour but I think it sounds like a bad idea.  The flour would absorb wine and wash out.  Then it would leak. 
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4.Thanks for your efforts in this regard.  I've contacted Drs. Fasano, Green and Guandalini.  So far, I've heard back from Pam King, who's looking into it.  In the six years since I've been diagnosed, I've never heard anyone (not even CSA) say that there was a potential problem with pure wine; nor have I ever seen any studies that showed, for example, elevated antibodies from wine.  
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5.I live in Napa Valley and spoke with a friend who is a winemaker here.
He stated that they do use a flour mixture to seal the barrels in which
wine is aged. This excludes sauvignon blancs which are made in stainless
steel barrels. He wasn't sure if it would actually get into the wine and
whether or not the microfiltration system (which filters down to the
size of bacteria) would eliminate it if it did. He is going to check
into it further for me, I just haven't seen him in a few wks. Also, not
all wineries filter their wine so that is another consideration even if
there is contamination that is removed by the filters. Hopefully I will
get some more useful information soon. I do know a few other winemakers
so I will also run it by them.

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