It has been namechecked by Jay-Z, 50 Cent and Lana Del Rey but the owner of the Cristal champagne brand has issued a legal letter after a small London firm picked a similar moniker for one of its wines.
Renegade Urban Winery, which is based on an industrial estate in Walthamstow, east London, said it had been contacted by representatives of the champagne-maker Louis Roederer who claimed that the UK producer’s use of the name Crystal on a pink sparkling wine infringes the French firm’s Cristal brand.
The lawyers also accused Renegade, which makes 70,000 bottles of wine annually compared with more than 3m at Roederer, of “passing off”, a form of misrepresentation that may have damaged Cristal’s reputation with drinkers, according to Decanter magazine, which first reported the tiff.
Renegade was instructed to cease using the name Crystal or potentially face court action.
Warwick Smith, the founder of the UK producer, which describes itself as “breaking the rules, one bottle at a time”, said he was surprised to receive the legal letter.
“We have never tried to copy or rely on the coattails of another brand,” he told the Guardian. “My hope is that everything gets resolved amicably. We haven’t got any pockets, never mind deep ones”
Smith said the bottles’ labels were “completely different” and the names were pronounced differently: “It’s a very different product in taste, look, feel, price point and country of origin.”
Renegade’s sparkling wine is on sale via its website for £27 a bottle but is mainly sold via London restaurants. It is produced with croatina grapes from Italy’s Lombardy region. The winery has not produced a Crystal vintage this year as it is focusing on British wines.
Smith said Crystal, which Renegade has been producing since 2018, was named after a fashion student who agreed to have her face featured on the label as part of its regular method of naming wines after fans. Other wines include Maria, Jamie and Alf.
Cristal is one of the world’s priciest champagnes, typically selling for more than £200 a bottle. The blend of pinot noir and chardonnay was created in 1876 to satisfy the tastes of Tsar Alexander II but was regularly named in rap lyrics in the early noughties as a signifier of a glitzy lifestyle.
However, the brand suffered a “hip-hop” boycott – with Jay-Z banning the champagne cuvee from his 40/40 Club in 2006 after the then managing director of Cristal, Frédéric Rouzaud, appeared to indicate that using Cristal in rap lyrics was unwelcome.
Louis Roederer and its lawyers have been contacted for comment.
• The subheading of this article was amended on 26 October 2023 because an earlier version referred to “copyright” instead of “trademark” .
