30.03.2011 - Vinexpo news selection
Georgia is trying to win back the trademark for Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's favourite brand of red wine in the United States, officials said.
Georgia's patent office said that it was in negotiations with US-based company Dozortsev and Sons, which it said currently has the exclusive right to sell the semi-sweet Georgian wine called Khvanchkara in the United States.
"A monopoly for Georgian wines' trademarks in one private company's hands may damage the interests of our winemakers," the head of the patent office, Irakli Gvaladze, told AFP
Georgian-born Soviet leader Stalin liked Khvanchkara so much that he served it to US president Franklin Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill at a crucial World War II summit in Yalta in 1945, according to Dozortsev and Sons' website.
Gvaladze said that Khvanchkara had "unique qualities of taste" and was only produced in limited quantities in one remote region of the ex-Soviet republic. (AFP / 4 March 2011)