Tsar’s tipple faces vodka challenge

From paranoid Tsars to hip-hop stars, Cristal Champagne has been the tipple of choice for anyone with money to burn.
But the distinctive see-through bottles could be set to disappear from Moscow's high-end hotels and decadent nightspots thanks to a ruling from Rospatent this week.
Russian booze company Soyuzplodoimport has won a battle claiming that Louis Roederer's Cristal brand infringes the copyright of its Kristal vodka - and now has the potential to force the deluxe brand from the Russian market.
The perhaps surprising element to the story is that Soyuzplodoimport doesn't actually produce any Kristal vodka at the moment.
A Soyuzplodoimport spokeswoman explained that this was a tit-for-tat measure in response to the French firm's efforts to bar Kristal vodka from European markets. She added that it was now up to the luxury vineyard to decide whether to get a license for their product here in Russia.
In France, staff at Louis Roederer Vineyards said that the company would not be making any decisions for another week or two.
Ironically, the court ruling could oust Cristal from the country for which it was originally created. Legend has it that Tsar Alexander II, fearing traditional green champagne bottles could be used to hide an assassin's bomb, commissioned a brand in a crystal-clear carafe.
Thus Cristal Champagne, with its distinctive flat-bottomed design, was born - though it failed to save the monarch from an explosive end. He survived four assassination attempts but was killed when his carriage was attacked on the streets of St. Petersburg in 1881.
Cristal - which costs at least 20,000 roubles ($600) a bottle - has a devoted celebrity fanbase, seducing many pop stars, actors and oligarchs with its exclusive design and price tag.
But while foul-mouthed Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino once opined that "everything else is piss" in his 1995 film Four Rooms, Moscow's Knights of the Vine group of winetasters has found a local alternative which outranked its illustrious rival in a blind taste test.
Comparing top champagnes from France, Russia and Ukraine, they ranked Cristal down in fifth place, with a little-known Crimean wine, Novy Svet's 2002 Pinot Noir Rose, taking top spot despite a piffling price tag of 550 roubles a pop.
"The tasting that we had, completely blind with a certified top wine expert from London, speaks for itself on quality," said Charles Borden, of Knights of the Vine.
Typically international trademarks are protected under the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, but this does not automatically take precedence over national laws.
And the decision of Russian courts this week could open the way for other Russian companies to remove foreign competitors from the shelves.
Similar cases in the past have seen Mexican beer Corona attempt to stop the production of Russia's Sibirskaya Korona, while the Smirnov vodka brand was also subject to a long legal battle with Smirnoff.
However, Borden does not fear for the future of other premium wines.
"This is a very specific name issue," he said. "I doubt that some of the other top Champagne brands such as Dom Perignon would have a conflict with a Russian vodka brand."