Walthamstow’s Renegade Winery in hot water after champagne giant Louis Roderer pops off over ‘trademark infringement’
A small London winery has been slapped with a legal letter by Louis Roderer after the champagne giant said its “Crystal” sparkling wine infringes the “Cristal” trademark.
Walthamstow-based Renegade Winery has been asked to stop using the branding, which, like all of its wines, takes its name and label from a customer.
Renegade has been accused by Louis Roderer’s legal team of trademark infringement and “passing off”, despite the two products appearing to have little in common.
“We had absolutely no intention of doing this,” says Renegade owner Warwick Smith. “Cristal never crossed my mind until last week. We make innovative, interesting and differentiated wines. Copying is pretty much the antithesis of what we do.
“The spelling is different. The pronunciation is different. The wines are different colours. The labels are nothing like each other. One is Champagne at £300 a bottle, ours is a wine made in London from Italian grapes and costs around £28 a bottle.”
Rebranding the finished wine, not to mention all the promotional material, and everywhere Crystal is mentioned would be a mammoth effort
Warwick says he intends to keep selling Crystal and says the cost of rebranding the 10,000 bottles from the 2021 and 2022 would be “substantial”.
“I haven’t worked out the cost implications but rebranding the labelled and finished wine, not to mention all the [promotional] materials, and everywhere Crystal is mentioned would be a mammoth effort.”
The bottle in question is named after Renegade customer Crystal Lai, who now lives in Malaysia. It has been produced since 2018 but Louis Roderer finally took action this month.
“It’s obviously very concerning,” says Warwick. “We do not have the financial might to take on companies such as Louis Roderer. It was obviously never our intention to copy or pass ourselves off as Cristal. Our wines are significantly different both in terms of underlying product and branding. We admire and respect the great work of champagne houses such as Louis Roderer. We are keen to resolve this amicably with Louis Roderer and their lawyers.”
Louis Roderer did not immediately respond to a request for a comment.