Thanks to a new rule imposed by the European Union, wineries can't use the word "port" on their wine labels unless their stuff was made in Portugal. Peltier Station Winery wasn't the type to accept defeat: The winemakers thought of a clever loophole, branding their dessert wine "USB" as a substitute for the word

"port." In its online store, Peltier Station even boldly lists the $25 wine as "USB Port."

Kind of a stretch, but the roots on the label even resemble the USB symbol.

According to the label maker, 6 West Design, it took quite a while for the label to be approved:

*The back label took three months of TTB/Cola deliberation before they finally approved it - not without telling our Client [Peltier Station Winery] they had never encountered someone going so far out of their way to prove a point. *

God, I love semantics, don't you? I'd love to see the company put out an entire series of dessert "port" wines named after computer connections – FireWire, Ethernet, eSATA. The curiosity of what those wines would taste like would make me an instant buyer.

Back of the label is below the jump.

Product Page [Peltier Station via TheDieLine] (Thanks, Jenn!)

Photo: 6 West Design