critter wines/new-world-wine

critter wines/ duke it out

Look-Alike Wines Featuring Look-Alike Marsupials Duke It Out

Two big makers of so-called critter wines lately aren't looking so warm and fuzzy. The producer of Yellow Tail has filed a lawsuit in a New York federal court accusing the maker of Little Roo of trademark infringement.

duke it out: fight, esp. with fists; do battle



Being less dependent on geography, New World wines have placed more emphasis on branding as a marketing tool, following the example set by Germany's Blue Nun and Portugal's Mateus Rosé, brands created in 1927 and in 1942 respectively. One particular style of branding has been the 'critter wines' that use animals on their labels. Without the partible inheritance of the Napoleonic code to worry about, New World vineyards tend to be very much bigger than those in say Burgundy, which has allowed economies of scale and a better ability to negotiate with mass market retailers. With supermarkets selling an increasing proportion of wine in many markets, New World producers are better positioned to take advantage of this trend towards high volumes and low margins.

new-world-wine

A reference to non-European wine-producing countries such as argentina, australia, chile, new zealand, south africa and the united states. New World wine techniques are modern, science-based viticulture and viniculture methods, although the differences are rapidly disappearing. See also old world wine.

critter
(krĭt'ər)
n. Informal

1. A living creature.
2. A domestic animal, especially a cow, horse, or mule.
3. A person.

[Alteration of CREATURE.]

REGIONAL NOTE Critter, a pronunciation spelling of creature, actually reflects a pronunciation that would have been very familiar to Shakespeare: 16th- and 17th-century English had not yet begun to pronounce the -ture suffix with its modern (ch) sound. This archaic pronunciation still exists in American critter and in Irish creature, pronounced (krā'tŭr) and used in the same senses as the American word. The most common meaning of critter is "a living creature," whether wild or domestic; it also can mean "a child" when used as a term of sympathetic endearment, or it can mean "an unfortunate person." In old-fashioned speech, critter and beast denoted a large domestic animal. The more restricted senses "a cow," "a horse," or "a mule" are still characteristic of the speech in specific regions of the United States. The use of critter among younger speakers almost always carries with it a jocular or informal connotation.