U.S. Olympic Committee pops its cork over a certain peninsula's vintner and the 'O' word
Olympic Cellars owner Kathy Charlton looks over a stack of legal correspondence between the winery and the U.S. Olympic Committee over the use of the name "Olympic," a term the USOC considers as trademarked and subject to strict rules of usage. -- Photo by Keith Thorpe/Peninsula Daily News
By Diane Urbani de la Paz, Peninsula Daily News
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And if a Web surfer types the words "Olympic wine" into a search engine, Olympic Cellars, "Home of Working Girl Wines," will pop up.
What a boon for the North Olympic Peninsula winery in a former dairy barn, yes?
Not so fast.
A few months ago Kathy Charlton, principal owner of Olympic Cellars, received a warning letter from the U.S. Olympic Committee.
The letter, written by USOC attorney Kelly Maser, cited the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act of 1998, in which Congress gave the USOC exclusive commercial control of the word "Olympic."
The federal law grants an exception to businesses on the Olympic Peninsula. They can use the O-word when marketing themselves - but only in Washington west of the Cascade mountains.
Since Olympic Cellars has a Web site, and since Working Girl wines are shipped across the continent, the winery could be in violation of the USOC's rights.
Turn down customers?
Charlton, a former Texas Instruments executive who bought Olympic Cellars in 1999, said she wanted to resolve this issue woman-to-woman, by dealing directly with Maser.
Then, in October, she got a second letter.
"It was very restrictive," Charlton said.
The letter stated that as of Dec. 31, "if somebody ordered wine [online] and was not a previous customer," who'd been to the winery near Port Angeles, "I had to turn them away."
Olympic Cellars has no right to promote itself outside Western Washington, according to the USOC.
Doing so could dilute the committee's control of its trademarked word, and confuse people about which companies are official Olympic supporters, the committee said.
The Vancouver Winter Games already have official wines from a sponsoring company: the merlot and chardonnay made by Vincor, Canada's largest vintner.
Compared with Vincor, Olympic Cellars is a minor operation.
Its annual production of about 13,000 cases makes it a boutique winery, according to the winery's publicity.
"My marketing outside the area is negligible," Charlton added.
Of course she wants to keep growing her business.
She doesn't want to "just roll over" in the face of the USOC's demands.
So this fall, Charlton hired Sequim attorney Jacques Dulin to help her negotiate with Maser.
"I realized that I can't do this alone," she said, adding that while she's loath to lose her Olympic name, she can't spend "thousands and thousands" in a court fight.
The Olympic Games, as anyone who's been near a television knows, comprise a multibillion-dollar industry with such sponsors as Visa, Coca-Cola and Budweiser.
And the USOC has a media department to respond to reporters' questions about disputes like the one with Olympic Cellars.
Maser doesn't talk to the press; instead the USOC has a spokesman.
"Our discussions [with Charlton] have been extremely amicable and productive. Both parties are working toward a resolution that is fair," said Darryl Seibel from his USOC office in Colorado Springs.
Have gone to court
In the recent past, the USOC has taken business owners like Charlton to court over the word "Olympic."
But "it's rare," Seibel said. "In almost every case, we find the parties are quite willing to work with us."
Naming disputes are "often resolved with a phone call or some letters."
He declined to elaborate - or to name others in the shadow of the Olympic Mountains who have received letters from the USOG.
He said only that the USOC sends warning letters to business owners using the words "Olympic" or "Olympiad" just about every month.
Why does the USOC, a Goliath that rakes in so many millions from international sponsor corporations, go after small businesses?
"We have a very important responsibility to protect the Olympic marks - a right and a responsibility," Seibel said.
"The value those marks represent generates the revenue [to] support Olympic and Paralympic athletes."
The committee, however, "in no way intends to be difficult or heavy-handed."
Internet sales
Charlton said that, back in 1999, when she purchased and renamed the then 20-year-old business - originally called the Neuharth Winery for its founders, Gene and Maria Neuharth - she heard no complaint from the USOC.
Since then, of course, Internet sales of wine have increased.
The Working Girl brand is known beyond the Peninsula, thanks in large part to the people who've pulled off of U.S. Highway 101 east of Port Angeles to visit the barn with the big Olympic Cellars signs around it.
If those visitors agree to have their names added to the winery's e-mail list, they're considered Western Washington customers, Charlton said.
So if they return home to, say, Idaho, and order wine via the Web site, they're not violating the Olympic and Amateur Sports Act.
But, according to the USOC, if that Idaho wine lover just happened to find Olympic Cellars on the Internet, and had never been here, Charlton wouldn't be allowed to send even one bottle to him or her.
"If they say they haven't come into the winery, I'm going to have to say, 'Sorry, can't sell you wine, because of the USOC,'" she said.
Seibel said he couldn't answer questions about why the USOC is clamping down now on Olympic Cellars.
Instead he repeated that the committee "goes to great lengths to avoid litigation."
Congressional response
Charlton said she has asked for help from Democratic U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, whose congressional district includes the North Olympic Peninsula - to no avail.
A reporter's calls for comment from Dicks' office were not returned.
When Congress passed the Olympic and Amateur Sports Act, Washington state's senators were Republican Slade Gorton and Democrat Patty Murray.
Gorton was the one who added the Western Washington marketing exception for Olympic-named companies, according to Matthew McAlvanah, Murray's deputy press secretary.
Gorton and Murray both "believed this exception would have helped folks out," McAlvanah said, adding that sales of Olympic Peninsula products west of the Cascades "are not substantial."
Olympic Cellars' dilemma "is new to us," he added.
U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, the Democrat from Mountlake Terrace, succeeded Gorton.
She too has yet to hear from Olympic Cellars, said Cantwell spokeswoman Ciaran Clayton.
"We'd be happy to look into the issue," Clayton added.
"We need to have a conversation with Olympic Cellars' owners."
Growing business
Charlton shares ownership with tasting room manager Molly Rivard and event coordinator Libby Sweetser.
They promote the operation as woman-owned, offer gifts to women on "girls' road trips," and host fundraisers for local nonprofits such as Healthy Families of Clallam County.
Earlier this year, Charlton won the Women for WineSense Rising Star award for what the national group called "over the top marketing innovation," such as the annual No Labor Day concert, a "women's day off" celebration at the winery.
Last summer, they hired another woman to help in the tasting room.
Nancy Yeatman was just passing through, but as a former business counselor, she offered Charlton advice on coping with the USOC problem.
"She said, 'Kathy, you have two roads. You can be bitter and say everybody's against me, or you can do the best job you can and work with the people you have to,'" Charlton recalled.
She chose the latter.
"I believe [Maser and the USOC] are trying to work with me, and I understand they can't grant me anything more than they would with anybody else."
Could change name
Charlton said she could end the dispute by changing the winery's name to Dungeness.
But the Olympic name "is our heritage," she said.
She and her partners have poured seven years of their lives into building the business.
What Charlton hopes for: that the USOC will allow her to simply add a disclaimer to the winery's Web site.
It would state that Olympic Cellars has nothing to do with the Olympic Games or its sponsors or athletes.
In the meantime, Charlton said, she'll continue to negotiate with Maser herself. She doesn't want to turn the dispute into an antagonistic, lawyer-versus-lawyer standoff.
And she's being careful.
Olympic Cellars wines have won accolades in the form of gold, silver and bronze medals at the Washington State Wine competition.
But "I'm almost afraid to display my medals," Charlton said.
"I'd better not right now."
Last modified: December 29. 2007 9:00PM