Bad words, good wines: how Portuguese wine pushes boundaries of trademark law

When browsing a contemporary Portuguese wine shelf, an uninitiated consumer may encounter, alongside the names of traditional estates and centuries-old family houses, bottles bearing designations such as “Mula Velha”, “Porca de Murça”, and “Cabeça de Burro”, which, in everyday Portuguese, function as insults, vulgar expressions, or pejorative references to animals.

Far from being a mere marketing gimmick, this unexpected branding reflects a distinctive cultural phenomenon. These names are rarely arbitrary inventions; rather, they constitute a form of commercial preservation of local folklore, rural memory, micro-toponymy, and regional history.

Understanding this phenomenon presupposes an appreciation of the institutional and historical foundations of Portuguese viticulture, which are, to some extent, protected and reinforced by the country’s trademark practice.

The apparent irreverence of contemporary Portuguese wine branding is only intelligible against the background of one of the oldest and most highly regulated wine traditions in Europe.

In 1756, Portugal established the Região Demarcada do Douro to regulate the production of Port wine, thereby creating the world’s first legally demarcated wine region. This measure defined production boundaries, classified vineyards, and controlled commercial practices, thereby creating the conditions for the long-term preservation of viticultural diversity.

Portuguese viticulture has preserved an exceptional reservoir of indigenous castas, many of them within ancient field blends (vinhas velhas), where numerous varieties coexist, are harvested together, and are vinified as a single wine.

Given that authenticity was secured through geography, tradition, and legal protection, Portuguese producers have not been compelled to construct prestige exclusively through branding; rather, they have been able to cultivate irony, local memory, and cultural specificity as defining elements of their identity.

The adoption of ostensibly offensive animal names rarely constitutes a deliberate attempt to provoke. Rather, such expressions reclaim terms whose original meanings are rooted in local geography, agricultural practice, or regional folklore. Indeed, what may be perceived as vulgarity from the standpoint of contemporary urban Portuguese frequently corresponds to centuries-old traditions of rural nomenclature. Below are some examples.

Although porca may carry pejorative connotations in contemporary Portuguese, the designation derives from the granite sculpture Porca de Murça, an Iron Age monument located in the town of Murça. Local tradition associates this monument with the legend of a wild boar that once terrorised the surrounding population.

In everyday Portuguese, the expression burro, or cabeça de burro, may convey stubbornness or a lack of intelligence. In the Douro, the wine Cabeça de Burro, created by Caves Vale do Rodo, reclaims local folklore and the animal’s stubborn nature as a symbol of rugged, high-altitude viticulture.

Although mula may describe an obstinate or difficult person in colloquial speech, within the wine context the designation conveys a dual meaning: it evokes resilience, reliability, and the accumulated wisdom of a lifetime of labour, while simultaneously honouring the mule as an animal once regarded as the farmer’s indispensable companion in agricultural work.

Used in isolation, vaca constitutes one of the most common misogynistic insults in Portuguese. The wine bears no relation to this colloquial meaning. Instead, it commemorates the centuries-old festival held annually in Ponte de Lima, during which a bovine animal is guided through the historic streets by means of two long ropes (cordas), preserving one of Portugal’s oldest popular traditions.

The commercial circulation of these names raises an important legal question. Under Article 231(3)(c) of the Portuguese Industrial Property Code, trademarks containing “Expressions or representations contrary to the law, morality, public order, and good customs” are not eligible for registration. At first glance, designations ostensibly grounded in insulting or pejorative language might be regarded as incompatible with this requirement.

The practice of the Instituto Nacional da Propriedade Industrial (INPI), however, reveals a more nuanced interpretative approach. Rather than assessing signs in isolation, the office evaluates their historical, geographical, and cultural context. Expressions that might otherwise be considered offensive may nonetheless be deemed admissible where they are rooted in demonstrable traditions or long-established cultural references.

This approach explains why Licor de Merda (Shit Liqueur), created in Cantanhede in 1974 as a satirical response to the political climate in the aftermath of the Carnation Revolution and the final years of the authoritarian Estado Novo regime, is a registered trademark. Its apparent vulgarity is inseparable from a specific historical narrative, the satirical nature of which is readily recognisable.

However, the contextual flexibility shown by Portuguese trademark law is not unlimited. Cultural continuity does not legitimise every provocative expression.

This explains why attempts to register expressions such as que se foda (fuck it) for wines have consistently encountered legal obstacles. Unlike names such as porca or burro, such expressions possess no identifiable roots in rural geography, local history, or agricultural tradition. Their communicative function remains purely insulting. In such circumstances, the INPI refuses registration.

Ultimately, the originality of Portuguese wine branding lies neither in irreverence nor in provocation as such. It resides in a distinctive legal and cultural equilibrium through which language acquires meaning from its historical context.

Portuguese trademark law does not suspend the requirement of public morality. Rather, it recognises that words are culturally situated and that their legal assessment cannot be detached from the communities that have produced and preserved them. Within that framework, expressions that appear offensive in ordinary speech may legitimately function as markers of geographical identity, historical continuity, and commercial distinctiveness.