Piedmont bows to California over Trinchero copyright tussle

Piedmont winery Trinchero has had to remove the family name from its wine labels in the US after facing a legal threat from the maker of the Sutter Home brand, according to reports.

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.

Written by Richard Woodard