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Food

Why France’s Champagne Industry Is Fighting This Drunk-Looking Clown

France’s Champagne industry just lost a legal bid to ban a Spanish soft drink that they felt was unjustly capitalizing on their carefully monitored “Champagne” designation.
Photo via Flickr user Daquella manera

What do you get when you mix one of the most fiercely protected luxury brands with a children's soda that has a clown for a mascot? Why, you get one hell of a messy lawsuit in Spain's Supreme Court, that's what.

Murky clouds of remorse and resignation are sure to blanket the historic province of Champagne after France's Champagne industry just lost a legal bid to ban a Spanish soft drink that they felt was unjustly capitalizing on their carefully monitored "Champagne" designation. Just yesterday, Spain's Supreme Court threw out a complaint lodged against children's drink Champín by the Comité Interprofessionnel Vin Champagne—the trade association tasked with representing and protecting the growers and Champagne houses of France.

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Much like Parmigiano-Reggiano and Cognac, Champagne retains a protected designation of origin (PDO) throughout the EU and therefore is shielded from imitations and interlopers in various ways. Which is exactly why the Comité Interprofessionnel Vin Champagne decided to call on Spain's Supreme Court to ban the Champín brand from using a name that, they argued, was confusingly similar to that of the age-old bubbly.

Too bad Spain's judicial system didn't exactly agree.

Although any sparkling wine that calls itself "Champagne" while not being made in the province of Champagne faces the risk of being banned, Spain's Supreme Court ruled that Champín—which is a strawberry- and fruits-of-the-forest-flavored soft drink made by Industrias Espadafor and marketed towards children—in no way made consumers believe the drink was made in or with Champagne.

The Court's ruling states, "In this case the product Champín differs enough with respect to those products protected by the Champagne appellation that the phonetic similarity does not evoke the product."

Looks like Spain's soda-loving children now have cause to pop mad bottles—and France's Champagne houses can't do a damn thing about it.