Joseph Wagner‘s Copper Cane Wines& Provisions, Rutherford, Calif., can’t use an Alcohol & Tobacco Tax & Trade Bureau Certificate of Label approval to avoid a class action lawsuit claiming its labels deceptively gave consumers a false impression that its pinot noir was made in three prominent winemaking areas.
Wagner had sought to argue that the federal label approval pre-empted any state claim. To claim a wine comes from a particular state, TTB requires at least 75% of the wine be derived from fruit grown in that state and at least 85% of grapes be grown in the winemaking region advertised on wine labels.
Copper Cane’s 2016 Eluoan pinot noir called the “coastal hills” of Oregon “an ideal region to grow wine grapes”, and its 2017 bottles also referred to the Oregon “coast” and included a map of Oregeon with leaves denoting the Willamette, Umpqua and Rogue Valleys.
TTB ordered Copper Cane to change those labels in 2018 after concluding they were misleading. Many of the earlier bottles are still in stores and, in a suit filed last year, said they would never have purchased bottles of Elouan or paid a higher price had they know the wine was processed and bottled in California and didn’t meet Oregon’s standards for claiming it came from Oregon’s prominent tri-valley wine region.
In rejecting Copper Cane’s bid to dismiss the case, U.S. Judge Richard Seeborg wrote, “Copper Cane offers no evidence that the TTB specifically reviewed for falsity its particular labels.
Copper Cane also artgued its labels weren’t misleading because the back label clearly stated “vinted and bottled” above the words “Napa, CA.” But, Seeborg said, the word “in” is missing and thus “whether the graphic design of the two lines of text are sufficiently clear such that no reasonable consumer would be deceived is thus a question of fact not properly resolved at this juncture.”
In 2018, Oregon Liquor Control Commission revoked Copper Cane’s license to sell wine in Oregon for allegedly violating the state’s labeling law.