If the Mouton label gets through the ATF, it will amazing.
I’m sure there are many folks here who are too young to have heard about the brouhaha about David Goines’s proposed label for Kenwood’s cabernet back in the 70s, which the ATF deemed “obscene.” The regulation allows the ATF to ban obscene labels, but not things the agency deems tasteless or merely racy. That hasn’t stopped them from nixing labels with nipples over the years, however.
The ATF said that Goines’s original illustration showed too much flesh. Goines then drew a skeleton in the same posture, which the winery submitted for approval. The ATF banned that on the ground that it might be construed as a tasteless reference to fetal alcohol syndrome. The final label had no woman.
I was in Turkey recently and saw the marvelous mosaic below in the anthropology museum in Antakya (Antioch), which I think Goines must have been familiar with. Contrary to what you might think based on the chalice and the wine amphora, it is not a warning about the dangers of alcohol. The inscription in Greek means something like, “Life is short. Enjoy it!” I dare someone to put that on a label!
If the TTB approved several of Vini Viti Vinci’s labels, particularly the Bourgogne Grand Ordinaire, then Mouton shouldn’t have a problem: https://www.vivino.com/vini-viti-vinci-bourgogne-grand-ordinaire/w/1249558. Also, the Supreme Court decision in Matal v. Tam has changed the standards for trademark approvals but the same reasoning will apply to TTB approvals.
I haven’t read Matal v Tam, but I don’t think trademark law is particularly relevant here. Labels are approved pursuant to regulations. 27 CFR Part 4.
The provision that the ATF cited to block these kinds of labels in the past was §4.39(a)(3), which prohibits “Any statement, design, device, or representation which is obscene or indecent.” Things like the Kenwood/Goines design weren’t even close to obscene or indecent under the law in the 1970s, but the prudes at ATF blocked them anyway. (I wrote a story about this crazy stuff in the early 1990s.) It sounds like they’ve become more reasonable.
My interpretation of this label: The breasts are not only breasts. They are eyes at the same time, and the wine glass is the nose. The Hallelujahs are the brain. The hand and the inclined, filled wine glass is an invitation, or maybe even a request to drink this sexy wine.
