Madrona's Melange wine called 'Trois' no longer
Paul and Maggie Bush are giving up their fight to retain the name Melange de Trois for one of the wines they make at their Madrona Vineyards and Winery at Camino in El Dorado County.
The French phrase translates as "blend of three." The Bushes began to use it a few vintages ago for a white wine made with three grape varieties closely identified with France's Rhone Valley.
Their Melange de Trois mixes marsanne, roussanne and viognier grapes into a richly fragrant and flavorful white wine that sells for $16 and steadily wins gold and silver medals on the competition circuit.
Now, however, they fret that their standing as a small, respected, family- oriented foothill winery might be tarnished through guilt by awkward association.
Sleaze is creeping into wine marketing, with sexual associations from the brash to the coy showing up on more labels, and the Bushes want no part of it. Nearly a decade ago, Folie à Deux Winery in the Napa Valley started to use the phrase "Menage à Trois" for a series of wines also made with three grape varieties.
"Menage à Trois" means "household of three," though it's come to represent a sexual liaison involving three people, a contemporary use Folie à Deux happily exploits with its marketing. "Menage à Trois brings together three strange bedfellows: moscato, chardonnay and chenin blanc," notes the winery's Web site.
After Folie à Deux was bought by Napa Valley neighbor Trinchero Family Estates a year ago, Trinchero officials asked the Bushes to stop using Melange de Trois. When the Bushes balked, Trinchero sought an injunction against Madrona.
Though the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California denied Trinchero's request two months ago, the Bushes have changed their mind about whether Melange de Trois is such a good name.
The turning point came at a recent open house at the winery. When the Bushes heard guests making sexually explicit jokes at the expense of the wine, they figured Madrona's image was at risk.
"I really like the term," Paul Bush said. "It describes what the wine is, but we started to get this negative feeling, that we were part of this trendy sexual imagery, and we didn't want to go there.
"We've had the wine two or three years, but we hadn't experienced that association before."
In addition, the Bushes found the litigation distracting and exhausting. "They had three lawyers working on it, and they asked us for everything under the sun in terms of documents, research, etc.," said Maggie Bush in a statement issued after last week's agreement between the two wineries to drop federal and state cases stemming from the disagreement.
The Bushes will continue to make the wine and will simply call it Melange.
That will be just fine by the folks at Trinchero, said Mary Ann Vangrin, the winery's publicist.
"The sticking point was the similarity between the phrases. The names were too similar. It was confusing," Vangrin said.
Going with the flow
"Two-Buck Chuck" has a new brother, "Four-Buck Fred." Fred Franzia, head of Bronco Wine Co. in Ceres, the winery that delights consumers with its Charles Shaw line of wines selling for $1.99 per bottle in California branches of Trader Joe's, is releasing two Napa Valley wines at $3.99 a bottle.The wines, a chardonnay and a merlot, both from the 2002 vintage, will be sold under Bronco's Napa Creek Winery brand. They also will be only at Trader Joe's, possibly as early as this week. (The Napa Creek lineup also includes a ripe, porty 2001 Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon, but it sells for $6.99 and already is in stores.)
These days, Napa Valley chardonnays and merlots rarely are found for less than $20, while cabernet sauvignons routinely are priced at $30 or more. (The Charles Shaw wines generally are made with grapes grown in less-esteemed appellations.)
What does Franzia want to say with his latest marketing maneuver?
"He's sending the message that good Napa Valley wine doesn't have to be expensive," said Bronco spokesman Harvey Posert. "If you have a good business and if you aren't greedy, you can make all kinds of values available to the consumer. That's his dream, to put wine on everybody's table."
The release of the new Napa Creek wines closely follows a ruling by California's 3rd District Court of Appeal that Bronco can't use "Napa" anywhere on the label of wines unless most of the grapes are grown in the Napa Valley. The timing was purely coincidental, Posert said.
Five years ago, state legislators, at the urging of Napa Valley vintners, approved a rule whereby wines with "Napa" or another Napa County appellation on the label must be made with at least 75 percent of the grapes from the county or 85 percent of the grapes from a specific viticultural region in the county.
Bronco, which has two other brands affected by the law, Rutherford Vintners and Napa Ridge, had complained of economic damage and restraint of its free-speech rights, the issues before the appeals court, which rejected the company's claims.
Peter Brody, Bronco's attorney in Washington, D.C., indicated that Franzia isn't expected to let bygones be bygones. He has two options: To ask the appeals court to reconsider its decision or to ask the California Supreme Court to review the issue. That decision is apt to come soon, Brody said.
Posert said of Bronco officials: "They have said all along they will keep fighting."
No medals for home winemakers
Wine judges from throughout North America will convene at Cal Expo this weekend for the California State Fair's annual commercial wine competition.For 25 years, the contest has been followed later in the summer by the State Fair's home winemaking competition.
But not this year. State Fair officials and representatives of the Sacramento Home Winemakers Club, which has been running the competition since its inception, have had a falling out. Unable to resolve the rift or to line up a new group to coordinate the contest, State Fair officials have put the competition on hold until next year.
Last year's competition drew 278 home winemakers or home winemaking teams, who entered a total 1,158 wines, making it one of the largest such contests in the nation.
The conflict between State Fair authorities and club members is multifaceted and complex, including differences over sharing revenues generated by entry fees, tickets to the exposition for winemakers who win gold medals, and even where the awards ceremony would be held.
Layne Montgomery, a club member instrumental in helping to conduct past competitions, said, "The club has a lot of ownership and pride in this thing, and everyone is still bewildered about this." Customarily, about 100 club members volunteer to put on the event.
Wendy Ross, the State Fair's event coordinator, vowed to revive the home winemaking competition next year. "We'll be sending it out to bid," Ross said.