Decanter World Wine AwardsPiedmont bows to California over Trinchero copyright tussle
- Friday 18 January 2013
The Italian Trinchero without the name [pic:Jeremy Parzen, Houston Press]
The website of the Houston Press said Trinchero Family Estates – the California-based maker of Sutter Home and Trinchero Napa Valley – had written to Agliano Terme-based Trinchero threatening legal action.
Monica Riessent, export director at the Barbera d’Asti producer, told the site that the winery could not afford to fight the American Trinchero in the courts.
‘They said that they’d allow us to sell our wine in the US,’ she told the site, ‘but they insisted on a number of restrictions in the contract they sent: we could only sell a limited number of bottles … In the end, we knew that we couldn’t fight it.’
Neither Trinchero (Piedmont) nor Trinchero Family Estates could be reached for comment on the reports.
Have your say!
bill
January 21 16:57
They were afraid people might get the wrong idea and think they actually made good wine.
Antonio Gianola
January 21 14:13
This is not the first time that a California winery has forced an Italian Winery to change their name due to Trademark Issues. It also happened with Vie di Romans and Gallo. In both cases it is a California volume driven winery forcing a small, independent winery to change from their FAMILY name.
Either of these wineries should be overjoyed if anyone who enjoyed the Italian wines ever purchased the California wines by mistake.