January 09, 2017

Submitting a Petition for a New Grape Variety to TTB

 Last year, I represented a client before the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) with respect to petitioning for the addition of a new grape variety for use as a variety on American wine labels. The grape variety, Loureiro, has been used on imported wines from Portugal and Spain. Its use in the United States is expanding, but before our petition was filed, TTB did not recognize the use of “Loureiro” as a grape variety for American wines. It thus could not be approved as a varietal wine. Several U.S. producers were actually very creative with their labels and used the phonetic spelling of Loureiro as their fanciful name (in an attempt to circumnavigate TTB’s regulations with respect to grape varieties).