After getting 100 points from Robert Parker and a cover shot from Wine Spectator, 500-case Carter Cellars has been slapped with a lawsuit from a $4 billion company. It’ s like Bambi vs. Godzilla. Replica Cartier Jewelry, the world’s largest-selling jewelry brand, is suing the tiny Napa winery Carter Cellars, arguing trademark infringement. The suit was filed last year in U.S. federal court. On Wednesday it was moved to a new judge in San Jose, who set a tentative trial date for summer 2015. But the Napa Valley winery owner Mark Carter says the suit will never reach court because he can’t afford to fight a $4 billion international company. “It’s not a fun fight to be in because they can just roll right over you,” Carter told Wine-Searcher. “They can outlast me on anything I do.”Carter first got into the winery business in 1998, and trademarked his label in 2001. Since then, he has purchased grapes from sources including friend and fellow vintner Fred Schrader and vineyard owner Andy Beckstoffer.

The 2002 Cartier Jewellery ReplicaCellars Cabernet from Beckstoffer’s portion of To Kalon Vineyard got 100 points from Robert Parker, who first reviewed it in 2012. Carter leaned on Schrader for advice on label design. He liked the simple script Schrader uses on his label, but didn’t want to use black for the lettering because that would be too close to Schrader. “It’s all Fred’s fault,” Replica Tiffany Jewellery said, laughing. “If you look at the two labels, you’ll see that’s where the similarity comes from.” Carter said he got his first call from Cartier in 2004. The jeweler commissions its own Champagne but does not sell it, instead serving it at high-end events. “They said, ‘There might be some confusion’,” Carter explained. “I said, ‘I can’t see how there could be confusion. You have an ‘i’ in your name, I do not. This is my name.’ They said, ‘The script looks similar.’ I said, ‘They may look similar, but it’s not the same.’ They said, ‘The color looks similar.’ I said, ‘But it’s not the same. I sell wine, you sell jewelry. I’m small, I make 500 cases of wine a year. I make high-end wine that sells for $125 a bottle. I don’t think there’s going to be any confusion at all.’ The guy let me go, and never called back for years and years.” cartier love ring replica said he didn’t hear from Cartier again until 2010, when it had hired a new law firm. But still no legal action was filed. In November 2012, Carter Cabernet Sauvignon appeared on the front cover of Wine Spectator magazine. Carter thinks this is the image that made Cartier decide to file a lawsuit. But that, and the 100-point score, are why he does not want to change his logo.

“Most people would give their first-born to get 100 points,” Carter said. “They laughed at me [in the judge's chambers]. They don’t know what it’s worth, in that room. If I change the wine label, it looks like it’s starting over a little bit. How can I tell people it’s still me? It’s very scary. That recognition: do I lose that? People might say, ‘That was then, they got 100 points then, they’re different.’ ” Despite that fear, Carter has asked an artist to draw up some labels. “I don’t have the wherewithal to last forever on this,” he says. “And I don’t want to. It’s wasting my time. This is me. I’m not a corporation.” But he’s having a hard time coming up with something that Cartier won’t object to. “They sent me all the scripts that they have taken the time over the years to trademark,” he says. “I could not write my own name in my own handwriting and have it be okay with them. That’s where we’re at. It can’t be in script. It can’t be in red. And my name can’ t be Carter.” Replica diamond love ring did not respond to email or phone requests for comment, but the email request did prompt a subscription to the Cartier Newsletter for this reporter that apparently cannot be unsubscribed.