Sweden’s most popular wine was taken off the shelves Monday, after the state liquor distributors Vin & Sprit lost the first round of a legal dispute.

Sales of Golden Gate wine, generally in 3 liter cartons, reached 3.3 million liters at Sweden’s state liquor stores between January and November last year. But Stockholm District Court has ruled that the name, which has been used by Vin & Sprit for nearly 10 years, belongs to the world’s third largest wine maker, the low profile American company The Wine Group, and its subsidiary Golden State Vintners, which it bought in 2004.

Originally Vin & Sprit’s inexpensive mix of wines from California was just called California White and California Red, and there was a picture ofof San Francisco’s famous bridge on the label . In 1998 they changed the name to Golden Gate, and somewhere along the line switched from bottles to the popular cartons.

Following the court decision, The Wine Group says it can now sell “the real Golden Gate wines” in Sweden. Vin & Sprit still maintains that they own the name and says they will appeal. It may be the Swedish judges didn’t grasp that there is a difference between “Golden Gate”, which is the name of the strip of water between the San Francisco peninsula and Marin County to the north, and “Golden State”, the nickname for California, that they are in fact two very different concepts.

However, it’s a bit difficult to research this story, as neither The Wine Group, nor Golden State Vintners, seem to have a website of their own, although they are mentioned on many other sites. Golden State seems to have started in 1995, 3 years before Vin & Sprit started using the name Golden Gate.

But whether Golden State actually has a wine called “Golden Gate”, and when, if ever, they registered that name, is more difficult to ascertain.