Au revoir, Remy

Disney has announced it is abandoning the Ratatouille wine label that was planned to hit Costco's shelves next month. In an interesting side but maybe related story, last week also saw the announcement that Disney-labeled films would no longer show characters smoking. Did Disney decide to become politically correct suddenly or was there something else at work here?

The California Wine Institute, a San Francisco trade group that represents 950 California wineries, has been reportedly putting pressure on Disney with regards to their foray into the wine industry. There are conflicting reports on what the core issue but it appears to boil down to these two statements:

Disney says the CWI was pressuring them to stop their shipments because the movie promoted a French product - French Wine based on the Movie set in a French Restaurant in Paris, France.

CWI contends that the basis for their complaint to Disney was the label, Remy holding a rat-sized glass of wine, appeared to violate the spirit of the code of advertising standards that all institute members must follow.

Since Disney is not a CWI member, I'm not sure why they would care about an issue that the ATF would typically handle but anyway it appears this is too much trouble than it would be worth for Disney so they have said au revoir to the wine business.