A few days ago, I was talking with one of my MBA students on Bordeaux as a brand. The question was: Should Bordeaux brand itself like Champagne?  By branding its region, Champagne allowed small family owned properties to shine and sell their wines. The region leaders, the famous Krug, Bollinger and other Ruinart, did not hide the many little Champagne houses. On the contrary, under the umbrella brand, every brand was able to shine.  Champagne developed a very creative image of happiness, party and pleasure.

Would such a strategy be possible in Bordeaux? Bordeaux has the privilege of having many Classified Growths – about 5% – leading the way in term of image and price. Hidden behind this massive tree, there is a forest of small properties and estates. Some of them have a very hard time surviving and selling their wines at a decent price.  In the mind of many international consumers, Bordeaux means “quality” and “expensive”. The down side of this excellent reputation is that, when seeing a Bordeaux wine sold around $10, the consumer thinks it can not be a good Bordeaux wine because too cheap.

Is there a solution to this problem? I’m not an economist, just a marketer. As such I would answer: “Change your image”. At $10, a Bordeaux can be a very good wine. There were some efforts made at changing the image of Bordeaux in the US. Did you hear of “Bordeaux MatchMaking“? It is such a fun idea as explained on the web site : “Just tell us who you are, your interests and the wine you enjoy and we will match you with the Bordeaux wine that best suits your palate. You’ll get to enjoy this amazing evening with a group of new friends who share your way of life and most of all, your interest in affordable Bordeaux. Wine experts will be present during the evening to answer all of your questions, while our hostesses will ensure your group has an unforgettable experience. The soirees will all take place at exclusive venues in Boston, Chicago, NYC and Miami.”

“Bordeaux wines are meant to celebrate everyday occasions”, says the tagline. A little like Champagne ? What kind of Bordeaux wines ? Red, white, rosé ? All of them? In fact it seems a little difficult to match one Bordeaux with one occasion. Bordeaux wines are so different and complex it is hard to pair an occasion and a wine: birthday and white ? party and red ? pizza party and rosé ? Do you understand what I mean ? The complexity, the variety and the number of styles of wines make it a marketing nightmare.

Bordeaux is not a wine brand, not even a potential one but there are many wine brands in Bordeaux you should enjoy in every occasion. Cheers!

One of the most interesting challenges for a wine marketer is promoting a collective brand. Champagne was certainly the most successful example of such a strategy: it is now synonymous with party, special occasion and pleasure. Unfortunately we know it backfired: consumers don’t see Champagne as an everyday drink but more as the special drink open for a specific event. High prices, down economy and depressed consumers halted the trend.

The second side effect of this collective promotion was the emergence of a few internationally recognized brands and a lot of brands left in the shadow of the leaders. That’s at least what a lot of smaller Champagne producers complained about. It’s the case also in other areas where an umbrella brand is carried to the front. But is it really the case? Wasn’t there a missing step in the Champagne smaller producers’ strategy?

In every collective action, there are leaders. Those leaders can be compared to the oldest in a family of several children. The oldest has the privilege and the honor of being the one opening the road for his/her siblings: getting the authorization to go out at night, then getting the authorization to come back at 1:00 am instead of midnight and so on. When their turn comes to be teenagers , the youngest children will find the road paved and open to their own initiatives without having to discuss extensively with their parents to get what they want. And the oldest will be so frustrated to see how easy the life of his/her younger brother(s) and sister(s) are!

The position of oldest child is as uncomfortable as the position of leaders in the promotion of a collective brand. The leaders will open the road and pay for the eventual mistakes: the wrong store, the wrong market or the wrong price. The brands coming after them can learn a lot from the mistakes and the successes of their leaders: they’ll figure out faster and cheaper what is right for their own brand and will be able to position themselves more easily and with a better chance of succeeding.

Believe an oldest child in a family of several children: the next in line has it a lot easier!

Videos, Google-style search engine, blog, Facebook page – Millesima.com, one of the leading e-commerce site, is gearing up towards Web 2.0 level and entering the age of social media.

Millesima.com is positioned as a very high-end e-commerce site. It sells only 12-bottle cases of Bordeaux classified Growths, Burgundy or Rhone Valley wines. Their customers are passionate wine amateurs and connoisseurs. Prices are obviously high and there is no bargain or discounted prices. Millesima.com sells in Europe. In their US on line store, the offer differs slightly as it sells sought-after South American, Italian, American and Spanish wines.

The move towards Web 2.0 is not without danger. The image of Millesima is linked to the image of the Bordeaux Chateaux, Burgundy domains or Champagne houses the store sells – an image of excellence and prestige. Their chais hold over 2,000,000 bottles of the best wines in the world by cases of 12 or special formats (Magnums, jeroboams). That’s why its entry in the world of social media has to be well thought out. Gerard Spatafora, the Web Marketing Director, chose a rather elegant strategy. With the help of a former wine journalist and expert in communication, Frederic Lot, he launched a series of high quality videos about some of the estates and their wines sold by the company. Those videos are in three parts: a presentation of the estate, a more technical part and a third one wore consumer oriented with wine and food pairing or drinkability of the wine, for example. They’re implemented in a separate section of the site and have a different design. The videos are not meant only to sell more wines but also to share with Millesima’s customers the world of culture represented by prestige wines. At the moment, the videos are only in French but English and German versions are in the making. When the series will be completed, there will be 150 videos – one for each reference stored by Millesima. But even with only 3 videos, the section is like a little oasis of culture in the middle of an e-commerce site.

At the same time as Millesima launched the video section, it opened a Facebook page. It’s still a little too early to see any significant initative. For now their page is only announcing their events or the new features of the site. It needs a little kick up to become a real Web 2.0 tool in their communication strategy.

Let’s Millesima keep working on their Web 2.0 strategy. See you in a few months with more news on an innovative e-commerce site!

As a French wine professional, I’m always amazed by the creativity of American wine producers. While in France, you identify the wine regions by the type of grapes (Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in Burgundy and Champagne, Cabernet and Merlot in Bordeaux, Mourvèdre, Grenache or Malbec in the South West…), California is paradise for a lot of varieties, not at all indigeneous to the place but successfully adapted to the local terroir and thus opens the doors to very creative blends.

Dave Corey is the perfect example of this strategy. He grows Mourvèdre, Grenache, Tempranillo, Malbec, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah for red wines and Roussane, Marsanne and Sauvignon blanc for the whites among others in his Alta Mesa Vineyard. His blends are very unusual for a French wine consumer: his 2006 Hard Core is a blend of 29% Mourvedre, 24% Grenache, 27% Syrah, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon – impossible in France! And let’s not even think about blending 39% Grenache, 36% Tempranillo and 25% Syrah as Dave did in his 2006 Ground Around. Their quality is outstanding because Dave knows his terroirs, pays attention to the sources of the grapes and doesn’t hesitate to blend varieties for the way they’ll complement each other.

The originality of the wines is also reflected on the label. All the labels were designed by Dave’s wife and testified of a work of love and quality.

Dave Corey’s wines are the exact opposite of the image American wines carry around on the international scene: mono varietal, marketed and branded for a certain category of wine consumer, easy to drink and to forget. Dave’s wines are the proof Americans can make great signature wines – creative and innovative – for the wine lover. And those wines can rivalled with the best European wines at a much better price.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the new Alcan closure for Champagne, first experimented with a Duval-Leroy Champagne. News now come from Australia as a new sparkling wine closure is launched by Zork on Zamphire, an Australian sparkling wine produced by McWilliam’s Wines under its Evans & Tate brand.

The SPK closure has been developed in response to market demand for a better solution for sparkling wine. Zork claims that the SPK closure will deliver high and consistent CO₂ preserving the bubbles, no TCA or flavour modification, an easy opening, a reseal by simple pressure. If we are to believe the clever video on the homepage of the Zork site, the claim is true to its words.

SPK delivers the same advantages as the Maestro closure of Alcan without changing most bottling facilities. Its look is more industrial than the Maestro – losing in the process some of the romance of the bubbles!

I mean… with Maestro®, the new closure concept for sparkling wines and Champagne. You love to drink Champagne but loathe the laborious opening process? You love the popping noise but fear for your windows or ceiling? Maestro® by Alcan Packaging is the answer to your worries.

The Maestro® closure is an opening system mounted on crown closures for shipment. It can be adapted to standard champagne bottles or special bottles on request for 37.5 cl, 75 cl and 150 cl bottles. The opening lever can be customized to match every shade. The dome is built into the overcap closure with all the standard finishing process.

What does it mean for the consumer? A great change: you lift the lever with two fingers (believe me, I tried it) and pop! your bottle is open with this delightful noise, prelude to a nice moment. That’s the beauty of the system! One has all the pleasures linked to opening a bottle of champagne with none of the hassles: no tainted cork since there is a capsule under the overcap, the design, the popping noise, the foam of the wine poured in the glass.

What? No cork! How awful! I can already hear the traditionalists crying over their cork. The champagne will taste differently, it won’t be able to age as much and as well, blah blah blah… First of all, may I remind the purists that champagne spends more time with a capsule on than with a cork in its life? Second of all, one of the most famous “Femme de Champagne” gave its credibility to the Maestro® system: famous for linking heritage and modernity, Carol Duval-Leroy, has chosen to be the first to use the Maestro® concept as the closure for its very beautiful cuvee Clos des Bouveries Vintage 2004 adorned with new packaging! “The closure issue is of crucial importance for the Champagne region, and to open the debate by proposing this Maestro system ® on a cuvee coming from the House’s oldest vineyard parcel, indeed sums up the links between heritage and innovation conveyed by the family of Duval-Leroy since 1859″, explains Carol Duval-Leroy.

Convinced? Not quite? Go get a bottle of the great 2004 Clos des Bouveries by Carol Duval-Leroy: you’ll become a new fan of the opening system and the champagne. I can’t wait to see more bottles of Champagne with the Maestro® system!

Last week, Bordeaux was buzzing with journalists, importers and wine professionals tasting the 2008 vintage on the Left and the Right banks of the Garonne River. It is always an exciting and fun time: when getting to a tasting room, one usually runs in a friend or a colleague not seen since the previous Futures week or can chat with a winemaker whose wines are tasting wonderfully or so different from the 2007 vintage. What happened? Why is it so different? Conversations are lenghthy and make everybody late for the next stop.

This year I limited my tasting to the Right bank and the Graves: along with my colleague Jean-Louis Carbonnier of Carbonnier Communications in New York, I went from L’Envers du Décor in Saint-Emilion (page in French), owned by François des Ligneris, former owner of Chateau Soutard and current owner of a very interesting range of wines to the tasting of La Grappe organization to the Biodynamic Wines Fair. The afternoon was devoted to the Classified Growths of Saint-Emilion and Pomerol before joining Michèle Piron-Soulat in Bordeaux for a tasting of the white wines of the Graves. A busy but great day!

“La Grappe” (the clutter) is an association of winemakers and vintners from all over France. They take advantage of the Futures Week to present their new vintage to the press and the trade. I had the pleasure of tasting the 2007 and 2008 vintages of Chateau Chambert in Cahors. Philippe Lejeune, new owner of this beautiful estate, managed his two new vintages with the help of consultant Stephane Derenoncourt. The wines taste almost like Bordeaux wines: smooth and rich in red fruit aromas. In spite of an obvious ageing potential, they drink very weel, even as young as they were. If you want a taste of the new style of Chambert without waiting too long, get the little brother of Chateau Chambert, the second wine. Before moving on to the next tasting, I “cleaned” my palate with a few extra-ordinary white wines: the libanese Château Marsyas and the 2006 Bargylus white from Syria (site in French). And then back to France with a wonderfully balanced Savennières Domaine FL wine (site in French).

Then on to the biodynamic wines. I was very curious about them having almost no experience in this field. Thanks to Jean-Louis who knew a lot more than I do, I was introduced to some famous (and famously good) biodynamic wines. I started with the Champagne of Françoise Bedel with nos sugar added: a real delight, moved on to Josmeyer‘s wines, stopped at Zind-Humbrecht‘s table and spent a little time with La Tour Grise’s vineyard manager. La Tour Grise produces traditional Cabernet Franc and Chenin blanc of exquisite quality. And then… surprise! I was invited to taste two bubblies: a rosé Cabernet Franc and a white Chenin, both fresh, fun and very low in alcohol (around 7%). They’re delightful and I strongly recommend them: they are unusual and their label is so much fun! The manager told me men consider those two wines as “feminine” and disdain them when women just fall for them. I must confess I was one of those!

After a delightful lunch at L’Envers du Décor and a tasting of François des Ligneris’s new range of wines (don’t worry, I’ll tell you everything about them very soon), we drove to the Union des Grands Crus Classés various tastings. In St Emilion and Pomerol, we were in the elegant world of the Classified Growths. The wines are of high quality, smooth and very good for such a difficult year. We now have to wait for the prices to come out. Yesterday Angelus opened fire by offering the 2008 vintage at 50 euros, the same price as the 2004 vintage and 40% lower than the 2007 vintage. We’ll see soon how the other Classified growths and famous estates are going to position their price.

Women are buying 80% of the wines in supermarkets. Are they as interested in spirits? That’s what a coming international competition will reveal, Women and Spirits of The World International Competition taking place in Monaco on April 23rd, 2009. According to Beatrice Cointreau, former CEO of the French Frapin Cognac, “Women have always been active players, and not just consumers of spirits. [...] Today, there are more and more women managing the big French distilleries and/or in strategic management positions in large international groups and/or having professions as distillers, enologists, sommeliers, negotiants, journalists, etc…”

Regine Le Coz is the President founder of the Competition and gathered the best technical committee who will designate the 5 panels of judges. This competition is a very good way to attract attention to a part of the industry that is overlooked by women. Some of them are or were heads of major companies, like Beatrice Cointreau or Florence Castarède in Armagnac. But women are usually more wine or champagne drinkers than spirits drinkers. It will show them that women are quite able to enjoy spirits with Spirit and Talent!

Yesterday, during the New Wine Consumer conference, Don and Petie Kladstrup, authors of Wine and War and Champagne, told us about the decline of Champagne sales. According to them, consumers chose to spend their Champagne budget on 6 bottles of a cheaper brand rather than on one bottle of high-priced Champagne. In spite of this switch, Don and Petie Kaldstrup are very confident in the resilience of the champagne vintners. As they reminded us, the wine industry was almost destroyed after World War I and hit again during World War II. But the vintners turned around and invented a new Champagne – the celebration drink by excellence.

What’s going on? While Champagne sales are declining – certainly temporarily – Italian sparkling wine exports registered a 29% increase in sales last year, with UK sales rising nearly 100%. Spanish cava is on the rise as well as Crémant from the Loire Valley, Bordeaux or Alsace. Less expensive, friendly, those drinks attract a cost concerned consumer. For how long?

“A whole new generation is flocking to an ancient beverage [...]“, writes Courant journalist Cecily McAndrews on US Millennials. I already wrote a lot on Millennials’ taste for wine whether in the US or in Europe. What I’d like to point out is the rise of the emerging markets’ Millennials. Chinese and Indian young people went abroad to study, whether in the US or in Europe. They were exposed to a different culture and got a taste for wine. In India and China, wine is considered a status symbol. Back in their countries, Chinese and Indian Millennials bring back their new taste and a wider knowledge of wine than their elders. They are part of wine clubs and go to tastings. To me, they are a significant part of those new markets we need to explore. We have to learn more about them and their tastes, more about their wine and food culture in order to market successfully our wines. All our Western wines are not fit to please them: Champagne and bubbly wines are totally unknown in China, for example. Do we need to spend years and a lot of money to teach them how to enjoy them or should we try to market wines they are susceptible to like more spontaneously? This is the question we have to ask us and emerging markets’ Millennials could be the answer to our questions: they are the bridge between our two worlds.