Château Lanessan in Haut-Medoc near Bordeaux is one of those discreet and high quality family owned estates you hear about from time to time.  But it deserves more attention that it gets.

Lanessan belongs to the Bouteiller family. It was run for the last 30 years by Hubert Bouteiller, brother of Bertrand Bouteiller who ran Château Palmer for 30 years. The Bouteiller family is established for several generations in the wine business. When Hubert retired, the family decided to bring to its management a young Spanish woman, Paz Espejo who had an international experience. Graduated in oenology as early as 1994, Paz started her career in Spain and Italy. She then settled in Bordeaux where she worked for Calvet and Cordier merchant firms. She learned to present their various wines on international markets until she was called to become director of Lanessan in 2009.

I already had the pleasure to meet Paz when she was working for Cordier. Energetic, passionate and professional, she struck me as unusual in the quiet wine scene of Bordeaux. That’s why she seems to be the right person to awaken the sleeping beauty of Lanessan. Knowing marketing as well as vineyard management and wine making, she put herself at work as soon as she got to Lanessan.  Besides her new two vintages (2009 and 2010) made in a rather different style, she worked on the image of what is now called “Domaine Bouteiller” with a new logo and includes Château Lanessan and its second wine, Les Calèches de Lanessan as well as Château de Sainte-Gemme.

A new graphic identity was created for the web site and all the communications. Orange is now the basic color of all promotional materials because it symbolizes energy, sociability and a modern creative approach. The labels are more contemporary. For Les Calèches de Lanessan, a horse-drawn carriage is used in reference to the family collection of carriages.

This new branding strategy is discreet enough not to bother existing customers but bold enough to attract younger consumers to Bordeaux wines of high quality sold at a very decent price, around $20 a bottle. Who said you cannot find a great Bordeaux wine under $25?

For the last two weeks, Bordeaux buzzed with the “En Primeurs” campaign for the 2010 vintage. Last week was the peak of the campaign with tastings all over the Bordeaux area. Every appellation and classification opened their doors to journalists, bloggers, importers, distributors and all kinds of professionals. This time of the year is a blessing because it is possible to meet all those people one knows through Internet, via their blogs or virtual events.

Château d’Yquem, true to its cult status, organized the tasting of its 2010 vintage in the most beautiful room of the Bordeaux Opera.  The staging was gorgeous with beautiful white flowers in huge vases and the golden sculptures of the walls.  It gave a very zen feeling to the tasting very much in symbiosis with the vintage. As most know, I am not a wine critic and will not comment on the 2010 vintage, except to say it was as zen as the staging. I enjoyed the smoothness and the elegance of the wine. As Sandrine Garbay, the brilliant cellar master of Yquem, told me, it is already very drinkable and amateurs will be able to enjoy it earlier than the 2009.

After the pleasure of tasting the 2010 and the 1988 vintages, meeting a few friends, exchanging a few words with Pierre Lurton, Sandrine Garbay and Valérie Lailheugue, Communication Director of the Château, I started thinking about cult wines and branding. When I wrote Wine Brands – three years ago – I concluded that cult wines like Château Haut-Brion or Château d’Yquem, were not wine brands: they were luxury brands, but not to be treated like a Dior perfume.  Luxury wine brands are a very specific type of brands: very rare (a few thousands bottles every year) and not expandable, often expensive, exclusively distributed, luxury wine brands can thrive only in the rarefied atmosphere of  exclusive events and zen elegance.  But because they are an agricultural product as well, they cannot be treated like Calvin Klein jeans. How did they achieve this legendary status? Answer: organic marketing. According to Michael Havens, who founded the Havens Wines Cellars in California, “Synthetic marketing emphasizes the brand’s concept, label and price, followed by the wine; organic marketing focuses on the wine and the region first, followed by concept, label, etc.”, said Havens to journalist Marvin Collins of Winesandvines.com (Sept. 18, 2007).  As Michael Havens said even more wittily, it is “a story of a guy in a place with a grape”. Of course, luxury wine brands are more than just great wines grown in an exceptional place and elegantly bottled. Nowadays it is also a concept. The concept certainly evolved over the years more “organically” than voluntarily. Each luxury wine brand had to differentiate itself from the others but instead of emphasizing the packaging, they worked on the emotional link they created with their customers. Drinking a glass of Haut-Brion or Yquem is like drinking a little part of European history. Emotion through a beautiful wine, elegant bottle and refined staging is what created the brand over the centuries.

David Anthony Hance found 3 keys to success for a wine brand: the wine type or style, the personality or the place.  By wine type, he means a zinfandel or a Pinot Noir “burgundian style”, for example. Personality implies the brand is based on a person, such as Coach Ditka or Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon. Place is linked to the location that can help brand a wine: who didn’t hear of the famous Napa Valley Cab?

A brand is usually richer than those basic three components while those three keys can crisscross each other. The Bonny Doon brand is nurtured by the personality of its founder, Randall Grahm, by its wine styles (Rhone Valley) and by its location in the US.  What is interesting with Bonny Doon is that, since it does not bear the name of its founder, it will be able to survive it if an equally charismatic leader or a good business man runs the winery. In the case of Coach Ditka, it might not be the same if the marketing is heavily based on his personality and the person looses popularity. The brand might have a shorter life cycle.

As for the location, is it really strategic? New World consumers have the culture of the varietal when Old World consumers go by the location, even the “terroir”. As a wine consumer, I love to know if my Pinot Noir comes from Burgundy or from Santa Barbara, California. My expectations will be different for the style, the personality of the winemaker and, of course, of the location. New World consumers have also a good “location” culture: they know a Syrah from the Rhone Valley won’t taste the same as a Shiraz of Australia or even from Bonny Doone. Location is important in the branding od a wine.

Are the three criteria analyzed by David Anthony Hance the only three keys to position a wine brand? We could add the proper definition of its target. Tapena will appeal to the Hispanic consumers or the lovers of Spanish wine and food culture because of its astute combination of Tapa and Pena (the fork) with a Tempranillo grape, branding the product “Spanish”. Fat Bastard with its provocative name (and marketing campaigns) will target people who appreciate a “fun” wine with the French seal of quality.  The Barefoot wine brand applies to every kind of consumers, from the first time drinker to the hard core drinker with a large range of wines: old vines and mass market wines.

A wine brand can be positioned through various channels and strategies. The key components of a good positioning are very hard to define and are the first steps towards a successful launch. Good luck to all the new brands available each year on our shelves!

Pernod-Ricard went through major organizational changes in the last week: they launched a new brand company called Premium Wine Brands. Under this umbrella brand, consumers will find some of the group’s major wine brands: Australian wines (Jacob’s Creek), New Zealand wines (Montana and Brancott), Spanish and Argentinean wine brands with international potential (Campo Viejo and Graffigna). According to Premium Wine Brands chairman and chief executive, Jean-Christophe Coutures, Pernod-Ricard now has “a complementary portfolio of premium wine brands representing the signature varieties for each country – Australian Shiraz, Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand, Malbec from Argentina and Tempranillo from Spain delivered through our leading brands, Jacob’s Creek, Brancott Estate, Graffigna and Campo Viejo.”

Let’s see how it translates in the facts. Curious to learn more about those wine brands, I googled “Premium Wine Brands Pernod-Ricard” and was sent to Pernod-Ricard-Pacific.com”. A little puzzling but I saw weirder things happening on the Internet! The homepage carries clearly the “Premium Wine Brands” title. I patiently entered my country of origin (France) and a birth date allowing me to have access to the site. And surprise : I was denied access because “my country of origin doesn’t allow access to this site”. Well, well, well! I checked “Germany” and got the same answer. I switched browser (maybe a problem of cookies?) and was denied access again. And then eureka! Is it possible that access was denied to Europeans? I tried “USA” and entered into the site with a loud sigh of relief.

The story is not over and I hope you’re not getting bored yet. I was expecting a site dedicated to those premium wine brands. Unfortunately the site is a little confusing. Under “Brands” are listed “Australian Wine” (which one?), “New Zealand Wine” (which one?), “Champagne” (really?), “Spirits” (great wine brands!), “Other Beverages” (yes?) and “Tasting Notes” (of what?). I’m usually a rather accommodating person (at least, I hope) but at that point I got slightly annoyed : first, it required special detective skills to enter the site; then I have no information on those famous “Premium Wine Brands”.

Let’s be honest. When a global company such as Pernod-Ricard invests millions of dollars (or euros) to re-organize its brands and hire new executives, is it that difficult or intellectually challenging to think about a basic communication tool, a web site? Is it too much to ask for a certain respect for the consumers? And maybe even more important, is it a positive move for the awareness of the brands involved? I’m not sure…

You might have read on brandchannel.com the story on George Best’s barley wine. Didn’t? Here is a quick up to date: George Best was a UK football star who drank himself to death, even after a liver transplant. His last words were supposedly: “Don’t die like me”.  Was it a good idea to let his name endorse an alcoholic beverage? At first sight, the answer is “no”. The case is even worse when reading the ad: “This limited release all malt barley wine has been brewed in homage to the famous soccer player George Best, who we hope would favour this rare ale. Barley wines are, like George, a dying breed and we hope to revive this beer style.”
That’s it: I agree 100% with the author of brandchannel.com, Abe Sauer. This campaign is an absolute “no no”. But could it be turned around? The story has the making of a success. We have a deceased champion whose addiction to alcohol drove prematurely to his grave. We have a barley wine (for what it is) trying to get on the market and to appeal to the values of a great champion. Why not donate part of the profit of the sale to some charity helping former alcoholics or former champions down their luck? It might help the cause of this quite unfortunate wine and transform one of the poorest branding strategy I came across in an acceptable one.