How are wine appellations and geographical indications protected in the United States?
The U.S. is a brand-driven economy. We guarantee consistency and quality to consumers through our brands, with names like McDonalds, Coca Cola and Gap. We have less experience with products tied to a specific origin, where a multitude of producers share the rights to use a name. We don’t have as well-established a legal system for protecting geographic names. The Treasury Department’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB, formerly the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms or ATF) took the first steps to establish a formal appellation program for wine in the U.S. in 1978. Twenty-six years later, this system still is evolving. Today we have several notable conflicts between appellations and geographic trademarks in the wine sector, including the battle between Santa Rita (the Chilean winery) and Santa Rita Hills (the AVA) and the case of Bronco Wine Co. v. State of California and Napa Valley Vintners Association, 104 Cal. App. 4th 598 (2002), presently pending before the Calif
