Cheers: wine that packs a pun can stay, judges in Utrecht rule

A court in Utrecht has decided that a wine called Zo-Merlot made by Dutch wine maker and tv personality Ilja Gort does not have to be withdrawn from circulation, the Volkskrant reports.

The case was brought by competing winery LFE which is bringing out a wine called SUM-Merlot in 2018 and owns the rights to the name in the Benelux.

LFE thinks the name of Gort’s wine, which was sold by Albert Heijn during the summer, is an infringement of those rights. Both names are based on the same summer wine pun.

But as LFE’s wine won’t hit the shelves until the summer of 2018, the court reasoned it doesn’t exist yet and threw out the case.

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