Vernaccia vs. Varnacia: "Dante Alighieri's wine" wins the trademark battle in Spain.

From Dante's quotation in Canto XXIV of Purgatory to today's tables: Vernaccia di San Gimignano, a white wine that is a symbol of Tuscan tradition, continues to gain recognition and respect, even on the international market.
The story begins on May 13, 2022, when the Spanish company Gmarket applied for registration of the figurative trademark “Varnacia 1321” for wines in class 33. A name that rather explicitly and misleadingly recalls the PDO “ Vernaccia ”, moreover with the addition of the year 1321, which recalls the very year of publication of the Divine Comedy and the famous citation of this Tuscan grape variety by Dante Alighieri (“ …This one,” he pointed with his finger, “is Bonagiunta. Bonagiunta from Lucca: and that face over there, more than the other, was embroidered by the Holy Church and its arms: from the Torso it was, and by fasting it purges the eels of Bolsena and the Vernaccia ….” ).
The reaction of the Vernaccia di San Gimignano Wine Consortium , responsible for the protection, valorization and promotion of this noble wine, not coincidentally also nicknamed “White Queen”, was immediate.
The Consortium promptly filed a formal objection , requesting that the application be rejected on the basis of “absolute grounds,” as the Varnacia 1321 trademark is clearly evocative of the protected PDO.
Despite the evidence of Spain's claim to the absolute excellence of the Tuscan territory, the opposition ended in 2023 with an initial victory for Gmarket, which, to overcome the objections raised by the Consortium, decided to limit the products claimed to only those wines compliant with the protected designation of origin "VERNACCIA DI ORISTANO".
An artificial solution, which however did not correspond to reality: the Varnacia 1321 brand was in fact used for Spanish wines, which had no connection whatsoever with Italian denominations.
The Consortium does not give up, appeals and opts for a new strategy, taking action to revoke the “Varnacia 1321” trademark for misleading purposes.
Finally, in recent days, after a long legal process lasting approximately two years, the appeal proceedings have concluded with a landmark decision : the Consortium's arguments have been upheld, the Varnacia 1321 trademark has been declared misleading and will therefore be cancelled from the Spanish trademark register .
"This victory demonstrates how crucial it is to believe in the legal protection afforded to trademarks and designations of origin abroad and to invest in protecting the names associated with our local excellence," emphasizes attorney Paola Stefanelli of Bugnion. "Intellectual property, if managed strategically, ensures that efforts to promote and enhance our PDO and PGI products, for which Italy holds absolute primacy, are not undermined by fraudulent attempts to equate foreign products with the culture, history, and quality that have made Made in Italy famous worldwide."
“The Consortium was born first and foremost as a legal expression of the community of all the winemakers of the city of San Gimignano, with the task of protecting and promoting those wines that for centuries have best represented our city and our territory: this is why today we are even more proud to have achieved this important result,” explains Manrico Biagini, President of the Vernaccia di San Gimignano Wine Consortium .
This success is the fruit of long-standing work, with careful monitoring not only of the foreign and international markets, but also and above all of the various national trademark registries. The most effective way to nip a threat in the bud is to intercept these trademarks before they reach the market , through a surveillance service, thus minimizing any potential damage to our image and that of our winemakers.
A great success, therefore, not only for Vernaccia di San Gimignano but for the entire system of Italian appellations, still too often the object of "wild" imitations abroad.