Winebits 739: Brad Pitt, supermarket wine, winery lawsuits

This week’s wine news: Yes, Brad Pitt, plus more supermarket wine upgrades and winery lawsuits

• Brad Pitt-Anglina Jolie? The Wine Curmudgeon is quite happy that he no longer has to worry about our overlords at Google and SEO. Otherwise, the blog would have to have more stories like this: Brad Pitt is suing ex-wife Angelina Jolie for selling her stake in the French vineyard they bought together, Chateau Miraval. Highest interest? Of course not, but the kind of thing that makes Google’s search algorithm get as excited as a math equation can get. The story, from the BBC, isn’t clear whether Jolie was legally allowed to sell her share of the winery, but there are lots of excerpts from the lawsuit. Pitt had invest “sweat equity” in the property, while Jolie sold “with a heavy heart.”

• Cubs Food liquor store: Cubs Foods, a top Midwestern retailer (but no relation to the slimy major league baseball team that has broken the WC’s heart) has opened its 30th standalone liquor store. This is a significant development in wine retailing; it shows once again that grocers are serious about selling wine, and that the supermarket share of wine sold in the U.S. will continue to rise above the current 50 percent or so. Also important, reports Supermarket News, is that the store carries 1,400 different wines, including what it calls “luxury” brands.

• Bring the lawsuits! Regular visitors here know that the WC has always shown a keen interest in wine-related lawsuits, dating from when I was sort of part of the epic Cristalino-Cristal lawsuit. This one, featuring two California wineries, is a doozy — one producer is using another of the use of a picture of a shovel on the label. Wine Business News says that Tenbrink Winery. fopunded in 2008, sued La Pelle Wines, founded in 2016, for alleged trademark infringement. Tenbrink’s suit says it owns the right to the label shovel, even though “La Pelle” means “the shovel” in French. Ah, legal humor.