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A Marlborough winery has emailed the Spanish company behind a bottle of wine in China over concerns the wine label is so similar it “cannot be coincidence”.
Adam Tyney, commercial director of Cirro Wines, said they were “monitoring” the situation to see if the “confusion” caused by the label was damaging the business.
Tyney said they couldn’t be sure where in the supply chain the label was introduced, but they had reached out to the Spanish wine producer hoping for an easy resolution.
The company had trademark and copyright protections in place in China.
The wines were essentially a Spanish product being sold in China under a French name, Comte de Chagnac, seemingly using a New Zealand label, Tyney said.
It was causing confusion for Cirro customers, Tyney said.
Tyney’s brother David founded Cirro Wines in 2009 and explained the label was based on artwork done by an artist friend using a charcoal brush, depicting the clouds above the company’s Marlborough vineyards. Cirro was a type of cloud.
David Tyney emailed the Spanish company but had yet to receive a response. Stuff approached the company for comment, using the same email address, but was unsuccessful.
“We have recently learnt about your Comte de Chagnac wine because of concerns pointed out to us about the wine label’s similarity to our own Cirro wine ... a similarity that cannot be coincidence,” Tyney wrote.
“We have serious concerns that the similarity of the labels might result in consumers being confused in the Chinese market.
“We are hoping by raising this issue with you directly we can resolve it quickly and amicably.”
Tyney was currently in China where he spent months at a time promoting Cirro Wines and working in Chinese wineries, particularly in Ningxia.
Marlborough formed a sister region relationship with Ningxia in 2017, but the council’s relationship with China’s third largest wine region started in 2013 when David Tyney won a winemakers' competition organised by the Ningxia Wine Federation.
Tyney had played a significant role as an adviser to the industry there, consulting to vineyards and wineries. The Chinese district specialised in red wines, particularly Bordeaux styles.
However, the Comte de Chagnac bottles were being sold all over China through online platforms, Adam Tyney explained.
The brothers agreed the apparent copy was a “back-handed compliment” to their ongoing success - their sauvignon blanc was in the top three New Zealand wines sold in China.
“Clearly they have noticed,” David Tyney said.
