Who owns the descriptions commonly associated with wine? Apparently, J&M Cellars thinks it does.

The mass producer of wine under the Butter and J&M labels is suing The Wine Group for using “bold and jammy” to describe its rebranded boxed wine Franzia. J&M has a trademark on “jam” to describe wines.

I’ll let the lawyers duke this one out, but I was puzzled to read in the Napa Valley Register that J&M Cellars is arguing that “jam'“ is not a “known or common description of wines,” according to the newspaper.

I disagree. I use “jammy” often because today’s fruit bombs from the West Coast are so jammy that you could spread them on toast. Google “jammy wines” and you come up with 469,00 hits in less than a second. There are scads of definitions from professionals.

J&M is also suing The Wine Group for using “rich and buttery” on the same grounds.

I understand this is a marketing issue. But, geesh, really? How can you trademark words that are so commonly used?

I bet no one has trademarked “cat pee,” a common description of many sauvignon blancs.