The state's alcoholic beverage regulators have deemed a wine label -- featuring a vintage 1895 bicycle advertising poster with a nude nymph flying alongside a winged bike -- has been rejected by the state as "immodest," and it must be removed from grocery store and bar shelves. Bob Martin, staff attorney with the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, said the ABC's licensing bureau deemed the label inappropriate last year.

"It was submitted twice last year, and it was rejected both times," Martin said. Early this month, however, a citizen sent a bottle of the wine to the ABC board to show it was still being sold in stores, he said. So, the board's enforcement bureau sent a letter to stores and restaurants statewide, reminding them that its sale was prohibited, Martin said.

The wine is produced by Hahn Family Wines in Soledad, Calif. Efforts to contact officials with that company were unsuccessful Thursday. A page on the company's Web site devoted to the Cycles Gladiator wine states that:



"Americans then might have been shocked by the thought of a woman wearing pantaloons or bloomers pedaling a bicycle, but the French understood what sold products -- thus the 'uninhibited' appearance of the Cycles Gladiator advertising poster."

The Parisian painter G. Massias produced the advertising poster in 1895, according to the Web site.

Title 20 of Alabama's administrative code, which pertains to the ABC board, states that:

"No advertisement may include any illustration(s) of any person(s) consuming alcoholic beverages or any person(s) posed in an immodest or sensuous manner, nor shall any advertising contain profanity or offensive language."

Several restaurant owners, retailers and distributors declined comment when contacted Thursday by the Press-Register. Licenses to sell or serve alcoholic beverages are renewed yearly, with applications due by Aug. 1.