As a not infrequent traveller to overseas wine markets, I never cease to be amazed by what I perceive as blatant copycat wine labelling and branding. In fact, you don’t even have to stamp your passport to see it in the cut carton displays within Australian wine stores. For Casella Wines, owner and maker of the Yellow Tail brand, enough is enough. The company is suing The Wine Group, the second-largest maker of wine in the US, over its Little Roo brand, for trademark infringement. According to Casella, the kangaroo on the Little Roo label looks just too much like the yellow-footed rock wallaby on Yellow Tail bottles for comfort. In papers filed in a New York federal court, Casella contends that the Little Roo kangaroo is portrayed in profile, is leaping, and is ‘oriented [in] the same direction’ as the yellow-footed rock wallaby on Yellow Tail labels. Wallabies, Casella also contend, are ‘indistinguishable to most people’ from kangaroos, especially when shrunk in size to fit on a wine label. The Wine Group argue in return that their bounding marsupial is in fact ‘an eastern grey bush kangaroo carrying a baby poking out from its pouch’. Casella’s managing director, John Casella, says ‘It’s hard enough for consumers to make choices, let alone to be confused when they go into a store with a particular wine in mind.
