Brands at Risk: How wineries exporting to China protect their intellectual property

(Wines&Vines) - Three wineries outside Beijing are closed after a raid reveals 5,000 boxes of fake wine, including China’s own heavyweight brand Great Wall. Another raid, this time on an empty house in southern China, uncovers a stash of 10,000 copycat bottles of brands from esteemed French producer Domaines Barons de Rothschild. Meanwhile, Shanghai authorities diligently pour more than 3,000 bottles of fake wine down a drain in front of media.

These are just three of many high-profile reports in an intellectual property (IP) story that includes logos being reworked via Photoshop and well-known brand names given not-so-subtle twists—Australia’s Penfolds becomes Benfolds, and its Hill of Grace turns Hill of Glory.

Notably absent from this coverage: U.S. wines, particularly the California cult wines so desired at home and by a niche of collectors worldwide. In fact, when it comes to U.S. fakes, the biggest story in recent memory hasn’t been in China but at home in the case of Rudy Kurniawan, accused of copying labels such as Screaming Eagle, although even he tended toward Bordeaux and Burgundy.

“I have never seen fake U.S. wines in China, which basically means they are not that well known yet and are not drunk by the masses,” says Patricio de la Fuente-Saez, head of Links Concept, a wine importer and distributor. “Fakes start appearing when a wine is well known.”