Picture it:  You are shopping for a bit of sparkling wine for a weekend picnic with your peppy puggle, Hector, and a group of your best friends. All of a sudden you see a bottle of $7.99 Cava with 91 points from Wine and Spirits and a handful of great customer reviews. You look at the image and think, “OMG, I wonder if that $7.99 bottle of “Cristalino” Cava from Spain is actually Louis Roederer’s mind-blowing Cristal marked down from a $199 to just $7.99. Your picnic will be legendary and you, my friend, are awesome. Whether this has ever actually happened or not is irrelevant; what does matter is that you might confuse the two or think that Cristalino is related in some way to the legendary House of Louis Roederer.

The human race is both tragically and miraculously capable of anything and for that reason one of our favorite Cavas, Cristalino, was forced to change its label image from the gold label, to the futuristic, “beam me up Scotty,” label you see today. I bring this up because we have updated our website to include Cristalino‘s new label and don’t want Cristalino fans to think it’s no longer available.  This lovable Cava is one of wine.com’s most popular Cavas and Cristal is, well, simply one of the world’s finest Champagnes, so when this lawsuit made headlines we all kind of wondered if this was really necessary.

I suppose it doesn’t really matter in the end, it’s just a curious footnote to that strange disclaimer on the label. It reads, I kid you not, “ JAUME SERRA CRISTALINO is not affiliated with, sponsored by, approved by, or in anyway connected to Louis Roederer’s CRISTAL® champagne or Louis Roederer.”

C’est la vie. Honestly, I’d happily have either one in my glass right now. Check out both wines or, better yet, try them.