Ok, so here goes again, though this time it might be a bit worse! Remember two years ago when we were having fun sticking import stickers on all of the bottles we were sending to the US? Well for the 2006 I avoided that by creating a back label especially for our importer Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant. Great plan, huh? Yes, except for the fact that I labelled too many bottles with our European back label and didn't leave enough for the US. Originally when I realized this I thought that I could simply add the Kermit Lynch import sticker onto the bottle and that would be that.
Not so fast... In France as of 2008 they decided to follow in the footsteps of the US require alcoholic beverages to display a warning on the label against drinking while you're pregnant. There were two choices, one a sentence explaining the risks, similar to the US or two, a fairly grotesque symbol of the
silouette of a pregnant
woman inside circle and a slash through it. (Nice huh?) Most everyone chose the symbol for the
ease of it and since it didn't take up too much space, us included. Besides when it's small it's really hard to tell what it is no matter how offensive I actually find it. Well this little symbol gave me a lot of trouble. The US immediately rejected it and made it illegal to import any bottles from France that bear it, subsequently many French wineries found themselves, like us re-labeling bottles or cancelling orders if they didn't want to go through the hassle.
Well, I certainly didn't want to cancel the final shipments of our 2006 to the US, so here we are using some sort of chemical spray that dissolves label glue to peel the original back label off. Then the bottle has to be cleaned, and finally we're sticking on the US back label. I had a couple of orders go out already and now we're finishing the rest of it. My poor parents!! I bet they wish they hadn't bought their house so close to ours now!!
Wow, that sucks! :( Sorry to hear it...oh and that symbol? Who actually thinks that will accomplish anything. UGH, silly laws
Posted by: ryan | August 25, 2008 at 11:15 PM
This is all starting to have the feel of a Woody Allen movie!
Posted by: Kristinn | August 26, 2008 at 11:36 AM
Hm. Since I know I have seen that symbol I guess some bottles snuck through. I wonder what the U.S. objection was. Too salacious?
Posted by: Steven Lanum | September 11, 2008 at 04:10 AM
We feel for you all. That just completely sucks. Well...we are more than willing to offer up our services again if a similar problem should arise in the future...just putting that out there... :D
Posted by: Maggie & Kris | September 17, 2008 at 04:46 AM