Wine ruckus over marsupial mix-up

A stoush has broken out between two winemakers, one Austr文章来源华夏酒报alian, one US, over the use of kangaroos and wallabies on the labels of their wine bottles. Picture: Gary Ramage

ANIMALS adorn many a wine bottle in the US. Aardvarks, cockatoos and penguins have helped sell wine.

But two big makers of so-called critter wines are not looking so warm and fuzzy, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The producer of Yellow Tail, the nation's best-selling imported wine, is suing the maker of Little Roo for trademark infringement. At issue is whether the kangaroo on Little Roo's label is a knockoff of the wallaby on Yellow Tail's.

Wallabies tend to be smaller than kangaroos and their coats brighter. But the cousins look a lot alike, especially when shrunk to fit on a wine label.

Casella Wines, the Australian maker of Yellow Tail, said in papers filed in a New York federal court that the kangaroo on its competitor's label is portrayed in profile, is leaping, and is "oriented [in] the same direction" as the yellow-footed rock wallaby on Yellow Tail bottles. Wallabies, Casella Wines contends, are "indistinguishable to most people" from kangaroos.

"It's hard enough for consumers to make choices, let alone to be confused when they go into a store with a particular wine in mind," said John Casella, managing director of Casella Wines.

The Wine Group, which makes Little Roo and is the second-largest wine supplier in the US, after E. & J. Gallo Winery, says Casella Wines is jumping to conclusions.

The San Francisco company "denies that the Australian wallaby is interchangeably referred to as a kangaroo," it said in a December court filing.

Dozens of species of marsupials live in Australia, and at least 10 different Australian wines feature a kangaroo or a wallaby.

Even many Aussies cannot tell the difference between the two, said Australian James Gosper, who runs Wine Australia USA, a government agency that promotes the nation's wine.

"I reckon if you bounced a wallaby in front of a group of 20 Australians who lived in Sydney and asked them what it was without leading them, you'd get at least 15 of them saying it's a kangaroo," he says.

David Kent, the Wine Group's chief executive, says that the kangaroo on his company's label is an eastern grey bush kangaroo carrying a baby poking out from its pouch. "We were looking for a way of communicating a strong sense of place," he said. "There's been an American fascination with the joey, the baby kangaroo…It's a totally different concept."

Americans, though, do seem to mix up the animals. One recent afternoon, Sanjay Sonani, co-owner of a wine and liquor store in Illinois, said he had never heard of the wallaby.

"All this time, I thought this was a kangaroo," he said, staring at a bottle of Yellow Tail. "I watch 'Animal Planet' a lot. I have heard of a kangaroo, but not a wallaby."

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