MEDIA REVIEWS

The Little Red Book of Wine Law:
A Case of Legal Issues

By Carol Robertson
American Bar Association 2008
165 pages, paperback

The Little Red Book of Wine Law is delightful to read for those curious to learn how the world of wine and the law have intersected. It is written by Carol Robertson, a 25-year practicing attorney who has represented clients in various wine-related litigation and regulatory matters. The book begins with a brief, anecdotal history of wine in the United States from the colonial days to the twenty-first century. The remaining 12 chapters of the book, each representing a bottle in a case of wine, examine interesting legal cases and developments that have impacted wine production and sales in the United States and worldwide over the past century.

The legal cases featured in the book, decided between 1910 and 2008, cover diverse wine subjects involving trademark law, antitrust law, criminal law, constitutional law, and even international treaties. Each chapter begins by explaining the case’s background, the court decision and its effects, and modern day applicability to the wine business. Notable cases discussed include the Supreme Court’s decision in Granholm v. Heald regarding the three-tier distribution system still utilized today in many states to regulate wine sales to the public, the trade dress infringement suit between Kendall-Jackson Winery and E. & J. Gallo Winery, and the legal battles of the Moramarco brothers, the Mondavi family, and the Gallo brothers over ownership of their family wine business and its namesake. Other cases shed light on the labor problems at the Charles Krug Winery and developments in protecting brand names and trademark rights since the unfavorable court decision in 1910 in the lawsuit filed by the Italian Swiss Colony against the Italian Vineyard Company to protect the name of its then-famous “Tipo Chianti” red wine.

There are short vignettes at the end of each chapter to explain a unique wine topic or provide a counterpoint to an issue mentioned in the cases. One learns from reading the vignettes the importance of “terroir” (a French word meaning “sense of place”) in selecting grapes grown in a particular geographical region when making wine and displaying the correct “appellation of origin” on wine bottles to comply with federal wine-labeling law. Other vignettes simply tell a good wine-law story to help the reader better understand the history of wine and the wine industry today.

Overall, this book is interesting and delightful to read. The author presents the legal cases and wine topics in a comprehensible form so the reader does not have to be a lawyer or a wine expert to understand the issues. It is recommended to the untutored who would like to learn more about the wonderful world of wine and how it has been shaped by the law.

Linhuyen Pham is an associate attorney at Heard & Medack, P.C. She is a member of The Houston Lawyer editorial board.

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