Awards and citations:


1997: Le Prix du Champagne Lanson Noble Cuvée Award for investigations into Champagne for the Millennium investment scams

2001: Le Prix Champagne Lanson Ivory Award for investdrinks.org

2011: Vindic d'Or MMXI – 'Meilleur blog anti-1855'

2011: Robert M. Parker, Jnr: ‘This blogger...’:

2012: Born Digital Wine Awards: No Pay No Jay – best investigative wine story

2012: International Wine Challenge – Personality of the Year Award




Tuesday 16 December 2014

Fizzical battle – Day Two – Round 2 : Champagne Jayne in the box

'Champagne Jayne's Twitter page 
 

Graeme Lofts reports from the Federal Court in Melbourne:

The battle continues . . .  Day 2
The courtroom battle between Australian wine educator and media personality Champagne Jayne and the France’s  Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne (CIVC) over her use of the word ‘Champagne’ resumed in Melbourne’s Federal Court today.  Champagne Jayne is the business name and trademark of Rachel Jayne Powell, who has been passionately promoting champagne as a wine expert, broadcaster, journalist and presenter for more than ten years. Amongst other accolades Ms Powell has been awarded the title of Dame Chevalier of the Ordre des Coteaux de Champagne and won a Gourmand World Wine Book Award in Paris for her book ‘Champagnes, Behind the Bubbles’. 

The second day of the hearing before Hon Justice Jonathan Beach began today with a statement by Ms Powell’s lawyer indicating that she has already taken action to avoid creating the impression that she is endorsed by that CIVC by removing the terms ‘ambassador’ and ‘global ambassador’ from her website, social media and other promotional material. Ms Powell has undertaken not to present herself as an ambassador of the Champagne brand and to clarify her independence from any French Government organisation. Ms Powell made it clear that this is not an admission that she has done anything deliberately to mislead consumers.

Ms Powell then took the witness stand and in response to questions from her own lawyer stated that she always distinguished between Champagne and other sparkling wines to ensure that she did not cause confusion, and that she had never been asked by any of the Champagne producers appearing in videos on her website or social media pages to remove the videos.


A number of videos were shown and transcripts of tweets and other social media interactions were presented by the CIVC’s lawyer during the cross examination of Ms Powell. These exhibits were examples of what the CIVC considered to be misleading behaviour, deceptive conduct or a tarnishing of the Champagne brand. Ms Powell explained that the occasional use of sparkling wines other than Champagne was the exception rather than the rule, but was sometimes part of the process of educating consumers about Champagne and distinguishing it from other sparkling wines. She pointed out that Champagnes represented only 10% of sparkling wines produced worldwide and that her occasional use of other sparkling wines gave her Champagne education context. She denied that she had done anything to tarnish the Champagne brand.


During her cross-examination Ms Powell was presented with a 282-page print out of Champagne Jayne’s roughly 3400 Twitter followers (as of 16.12.14 Powell has 3444 followers on Twitter – JB). She was asked whether she knew them all and could be sure that they knew enough not to be misled. 
After almost two hours of cross examination of Ms Powell, the hearing was adjourned until tomorrow morning, when her cross examination will resume. In the meantime Ms Powell is not permitted to speak to her legal representatives.  

The report on Day One is here

My grateful thanks to Graeme for his fine report.

  


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Odd that she cannot converse with her legal representation...

Anonymous said...

i FOR ONE AM GOING TO STOP DRINKING CHAMPAGNE--THE FRENCH ARE SO PRETENTIOUS

Anonymous said...

Change her moniker to Sparkling Jane and never again promote a French Champagne and promote better less expensive alternatives even the French sparkling wines from the South

Glugger said...

"During her cross-examination Ms Powell was presented with a 282-page print out of Champagne Jayne’s roughly 3400 Twitter followers (as of 16.12.14 Powell has 3444 followers on Twitter – JB). She was asked whether she knew them all and could be sure that they knew enough not to be misled."

If the CIVC actively prevented their members from producing sub-standard Champagne, or supermarket outlets from prostituting the Champagne brand, how much more effective would that be to the value of the brand rather than yet again hounding the small defenceless sole trader? Or do they believe that the millions of Champagne drinkers in the world know enough not to be misled by such quality and pricing issues?

It's a good job Jayne doesn't promote herself using an orange - sorry, yellow - label.