With all due respect, the two horny beasts look drunk. Just as if they were toasting and drinking together, especially since circles and dots painted above their cartoon heads are buzzing, as if the animal drinking buddies were already seeing asterisks out of sheer wine bliss. Research has shown that the squiggles are modeled on those on the Sa Perda Pinta menhir, a menhir on the island of Sardinia also known as the Stele de Boeli. What is particularly important to the winemaker Mattia Muggittu: The two silhouettes on the label of his wine bottles are oxen and not bulls.
Ox, bull or bull – as is well known, this is measured by the sexual strength and age of male cattle. It is possible that the distinction will still be important in Muggittu’s dispute with Red Bull and will play a role in court. The Austrian drinks giant has sued the 23-year-old winemaker from the village of Mamoiada, which has 2,000 inhabitants, on the Italian island of Sardinia. The group from Fuschl am See considers the allegedly drunk oxen on the red wine label, which also represent the trademark of the young winemaker, to be too similar to the two red bulls that stand in front of a glowing sun with lowered horns in the logo of the energy drink manufacturer rush towards each other in anger. That’s why Muggittu should make his animal logo disappear.
In such cases, marketing experts speak of brand protection. And the Red Bull brand alone is valued at 17 billion euros. Red Bull therefore employs “an armada of lawyers who defend the brand with all legal means,” wrote the Wiener Zeitung The standard. In 2010, the group attacked a Polish children’s charity for its “lend children wings” slogan, which was similar to the Red Bull slogan. In 2017, a Frankfurt burger joint called “Guter Bulle” was hit, which then renamed itself “Traumkuh” as a precaution in order to avoid a long and allegedly expensive legal dispute.
Will Red Bull really go through with the lawsuit? The group is silent on this
The Sardinian winemaker, however, does not want to give in. “We didn’t copy anything,” Mattia Muggittu told Italian news agency Ansa. “The logo is a tribute to the winemaking tradition of Mamoiada, the oxen are a symbol of our viticulture, since today we still plow with oxen and our vineyard is near the Stele di Boeli”, the Hinkelstein. The Sardinian Winegrowers’ Association has already pledged its support to Muggittu. A legal deadline for an amicable settlement runs until March 19, after which the case will go to the patent court. One would like to know whether Red Bull actually wants to pull through against the winemaker. However, in response to an SZ request, the group asked for your understanding that it would not comment on ongoing proceedings.
Muggittu grows wine on a total of five hectares; He sold about 2000 liters in bottles decorated with the ox symbol. According to Italian media, the young man is new to the wine business; He registered his ox logo with the responsible patent office in October 2022. Around the time that Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz died at the age of 78. He left behind a company that sold 11.582 billion cans of its eponymous caffeine and other sodas last year, increasing sales by 24 percent to almost €9.7 billion. 15,800 people work for Red Bull worldwide.
Incidentally, it is exactly 40 years ago that Mateschitz registered the “Red Bull Krating Daeng” brand under application number 475/1983. Krating Daeng is a reference to a similar drink made by his Thai business partners. The first can of Red Bull wasn’t sold in Austria until four years later, and in Germany it wasn’t until 1994. Mateschitz had to pay a fee of 700 euros to register; the amount has been due every ten years since then, including these days. For Red Bull, the sum should not be a problem.