Everyone at OWE is very proud of our friends at Scarecrow Wine whose 2015 Scarecrow Cabernet Sauvignon was named best wine in the world for 2019 by Vivino – the world’s largest online wine marketplace. Kudos to winemaker Celia Welch, owner Brett Lopez and co-founder Mimi Deblasio. It’s worth noting that Scarecrow already holds the record for the highest selling wine in the history of the Premiere Napa Valley auction – that price of $4,333 a bottle is the highest price ever paid for a contemporary bottle of California wine.
OWE’s Mel Owen and Kathy Letourneau have been representing Scarecrow on trademark matters since 2006. According to the Scarecrow website: “The scarecrow story begins in a patch of earth with a fabled past. The J.J. Cohn Estate, where Scarecrow grapes are born, borders what was once the legendary vineyard of Inglenook winemaker Gustave Niebaum, whose plantings blanketed more than 1,000 acres of the Napa Valley at the close of the 19th century. John Daniel Jr. took the helm at Inglenook in 1939, determined to restore the label to pre-Prohibition standing and produce world-class Bordeaux-style wines. In 1945, Daniel convinced his neighbor, J.J. Cohn, to plant eighty acres of Cabernet vines on the 180-acre parcel Cohn had purchased a few years prior. The property served as a summer retreat for Cohn’s wife and their family. He had no ambitions to become a winemaker himself, but Daniel promised to buy his grapes, so Cohn planted vines. The rest, as they say, is history.”
For more on OWE’s wine industry practice see: The Dramatic Rise of Wine Branding in California – OWE’s Mel Owen Pioneers Wine Trademarks Over Five Decades