Newlywed Sheonagh Taylor said she felt cheated when waiters at the prestigious Mains Castle in Dundee produced the £1.49-a-bottle drink instead of the wine that was ordered.
Her father had already paid more than £300 to have friends and family served with glasses of sparkling wine on arrival, and the family said they were embarrassed and upset to have Lambrini offered instead.
A legal battle launched by Ms Taylor’s father has been declared successful -- and Lambrini has been declared “frankly an inferior product” at Dundee Sheriff Court.
Father-of-the-bride Peter McLaren, a retired law lecturer who lives in Broughty Ferry, pursued Mains Castle for £500 to cover the upset at the celebration last July.
He told The Herald: “At the meetings prior to the reception, my daughter made certain requests -- one thing was for guests to get sparkling wine to toast the bride and groom.”
Ms Taylor, 34, who was celebrating after a ceremony with her husband Andy, an RAF engineer based in Elgin, said: “We just wanted them to understand what they did. Basically, we felt cheated by the whole thing. We paid for service we didn’t get.”
The husband and wife owners of Mains Castle, a restored medieval building in Dundee, insisted that their hospitality represented excellent value for money, and that the £3.60 per glass Mr McLaren paid for the Lambrini covered a range of underlying costs.
In court, however, the case revolved around the issue of whether or not Lambrini could accurately be defined as sparkling wine, the description on Mr McLaren’s receipt.
A bottle of the drink shown to the court bore a label reading “slightly sparkling perry” and declaring an alcohol content of 7.5% by volume. This, Mr McLaren said, was proof that it was not wine, because perry is made from pears.
In their defence, Mains Castle owners Eva and Victor Peterson argued that they had bought the drink from a cash-and-carry that displayed it in the wine section with a range of sparkling wines. In unofficial terms, the drink is also often regarded as being similar to a wine, and it is sold in wine-style bottles.
Martex cash-and-carry warehouse in Dundee sells 75cl bottles of Lambrini for £1.35, including VAT. Each bottle yields six glasses, at a cost of 22.5p per glass.
After considering the evidence put before him, the sheriff ruled that Lambrini could not be considered sparkling wine, and he ordered Mains Castle to pay £324 to Mr McLaren, plus a sum of £50 for the “general sense of disappointment” the mix-up had caused. He added his own opinion that Lambrini was “frankly an inferior product”.
A spokesman for Liverpool-based Halewood International, the firm which manufactures Lambrini, said he was aware of the case. On the issue of whether or not the drink was sparkling wine, he said: “It is not a wine, it is a perry, but many consumers do choose to drink it as a light-style wine, from wine glasses.”
The definitions for Lambrini fall into a legal grey area; Lambrini original is perry, while some other varieties -- such as cherry or peach-flavoured Lambrini -- are technically labelled “made wines”, but are not considered “wines” for excise purposes.
Despite Mr McLaren’s victory on the Lambrini front, the sheriff ruled against two other complaints he lodged: one concerning an upstairs bar that was not open during the event, and the other relating to Ms Taylor’s request for draught Strongbow cider.
The organisers said they had been unable to serve draught cider because an earlier event required lager on tap, but that guests were offered bottled Strongbow.
The Petersons defended their claim to running one of Scotland’s top wedding venues, pointing to more than 50 previous celebrations that passed off without complaint.
What exactly is Lambrini?
Lambrini has been advertised in the UK with the slogan “Lambrini girls just wanna have fun”. It is made in Merseyside by Halewood International, and has been available in the UK since 1994.
Celebrities seen sipping Lambrini, according to the drink’s website, include
Liverpool footballer Steven Gerrard and his tabloid columnist wife, Alex Curran, above right, as well as camp comic Alan Carr.
Lambrini is available in eight varieties, including original, cherry, peach, light, pink bubbly, cream and bucks fizz. It generally retails from £1.49 upwards for a 75cl bottle.
The original variety is made from pears, and is classed as perry by Customs and Excise. Some other varieties are classed as made wines, and are often described in the industry as wine-style drinks.
Original Lambrini contains 7.5% alcohol by volume, slightly more than half the proportion in normal wine. The light product is 5.5% abv.
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