Paris Hilton and Brussels incur grapes of wrath
It seems that Paris Hilton annoys everyone and now has angered the Italians for promoting the drink “Rich Prosecco”!
Times Online reports
The winemakers of northern Italy are fighting to defend what they claim is their heritage against an unlikely twin threat — from Hungary and the American heiress Paris Hilton.
The battle with Budapest stems from a European Union decision allowing Hungary but not Italy to use the term “Tokai”, “Tocai” or “Tokaj”, although wine producers in Friuli-Venezia Giulia have been using it for centuries.
The tussle with Paris Hilton, meanwhile, is over a drink called Rich Prosecco and its advertising campaign featuring the heiress wearing nothing but a coating of gold paint, in imitation of the actress Shirley Eaton in the James Bond film Goldfinger.
On the whole Italians do not object to seeing Ms Hilton in the nude. What has caused anger is that she has not only used the name “prosecco”, which Italians regard as their copyright, but also — sacrilegiously — put the drink in a can and mixed it with fruit juice.
The defence offered by Ms Hilton’s publicity machine is that Rich Prosecco is not being marketed in Italy. It was launched last year at a typically extravagant “mega-party” in the Austrian Alps. Ms Hilton, who emerged from a helicopter in a glittering dress, declared the drink to be “yummy”.
Günther Aloys, the businessman who created Rich Prosecco, said that she was “pleasant and uncomplicated. Nobody embodies carefree lust for life as convincingly and glamorously as Paris Hilton.”
However, in Treviso, one of the centres of Italian prosecco production, winemakers are not amused. Fulvio Brunetta, head of the Treviso branch of Coldiretti, the farmers’ union, said that Ms Hilton’s drink was an insult. He said Italian producers would meet this month to consider their response, “up to and including legal action”. Mr Brunetta said that he had nothing against Ms Hilton. “But she is . . . creating a generation of consumers who will forever associate the name of prosecco with something similar to an alcoholic fruit drink.”
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