A few of us had the pleasure of being
introduced to Bertrand Trepo of the champagne house Trepo Leriguier
during summer this year. He was visiting Napa and was generous enough to
conduct a champagne tasting for a few of us at our Escondido Village grad
apartment. In spite of him being from the old-world wine region, he came across
as an eager student of new wine making ideas and was in Napa to do tasting and
learn. During the tasting of his champagnes, he mentioned in passing that he
picked his grapes in the middle of the night. At that juncture, I did not think
much of it.
In class
today, however, Peter Mondavi Jr., mentioned in a comment that they themselves
picked their Sauvignon Blanc grapes in the night to maintain optimal fruit
freshness. According to stories, the technique originated in Burgundy at Domaine
de la Romanée-Conti and continued to spread to Bordeaux region.
This reminded me of the original conversation we
had with Bertrand and I went to look a little deeper. It turns out that he has
taken this night grape picking technique and turned it into a marketing tool by
which he invites plenty of friends, family and media to join him in the
activity of night grape picking. The champagne region usually does not pick
their grapes at night as the climate is cool enough during harvest season.
Bertrand, however, took the night picking and made it a tradition associated
with his brand. He is apparently the first champagne house to pick grapes at
night. It’s a bit of a tradition and his customers are enticed to enjoy
returning back to the soil by handpicking the grapes. It gives his consumers a
chance to be part of the process of wine making. He furthers his brand value by
associating it with a tradition and a makes a big event out of it. It
celebrates the harvest season and I am pretty sure generates revenues and
attaches an experience to his champagnes (beyond that of tradition tasting
rooms).
Very interesting! This kind of cases are what attracted me on the first place to work in marketing in the wine industry. I think that the wine industry globally has done an amazing job in taking the wine production and associated traditions and using them as marketing tools to generate a kind of magic aura around the world of wine.
ReplyDeleteOne celebration that I have been a few times and that I love is the "vendimia", which is the celebration of the start of the grape harvest season, that's a tradition in some Latin American countries. My experiences have in Chile and Argentina. Vineyards around the country reunite all of its people and families to celebrate the start of this season with dancing, music, games and delicious food, while at the same they use this party as one of the most important marketing events of the years, showing the experience in several publications. The marketing around it starts months before the "vendimia" and ends months after. The tradition comes from vineyards that used to reward its workers with food and wine to celebrate the beginning of the harvest season. After wineries and vineyards realized that this occasion could become an important marketing opportunity, the celebration has become much more than a day dedicated to celebrate agricultural workers.