Yes, this pandemic sucks. But winter doesn’t need to…. not when a hot pot of mulled wine and simmering aromatic cheer can transport you to exotic markets and faraway places. Here in cool climate wine country (Ontario), we are surrounded by an international community of friends, all of whom tout a killer recipe for hot,…
Tag: wine marketing
Part 3 – Sentient Wine and Beer brands Amp up Organic and Sustainability Messaging
Well that’s pretty much a wrap for September. How did you celebrate National Organic Month? If you’ve had the chance to read my last two blog posts (part 1, part 2), you’ll know I’ve spent the last few weeks thinking about why we buy and the factors shaping our 2020 consumer behaviours. There’s nothing more…
Part 2 – Sentient Wine and Alcohol Brands Amp up Organic and Sustainability Messaging
What’s more motivating? Better for Me or Better for the Planet? Understanding why we buy is one of the great 21st century marketing challenges. Neuromarketers say 90+% of the purchase decisions we make are governed by our subconscious, shaped by emotional drivers and motivations we don’t even know are at play. Those Levi’s jeans, that…
Sentient Wine & Alcohol Brands Amp up Organic and Sustainable Messaging
In 2018 – before the name Greta was etched into our consciousness – I was in a grade 3 classroom user-testing an environmental app for kids that explored climate change and plastic pollution in our oceans. Predictably, the students told us the app was buggy (which it was), and had way too much text (which…
Cliff Lede Vineyards: Brilliantly Blending the Rock and Rolling Hills of Napa
CANADIANS IN NAPA: EPISODE #5 When you’ve spent 44 years of your life in the northern reaches of Alberta, Canada on construction sites, oil rigs and pipeline corridors, no one should really be surprised when you decide to pack it in for the bucolic expanses of Napa Valley. And if you also spent those years…
Bordeaux’s Château de Reignac: a Case Study in Risk and Reward – PART 2
In a region with over 7,000 chateaux, it’s hard to find an estate offering a truly unique selling proposition. Quality is the attribute most Bordeaux producers hang their hat on. But how are you going to convince audiences of your quality when all 7,000 of your competitors are making the same claim? You start by…
Bordeaux Breakdown: Do the Big Châteaux have Social Savvy?
You’re a prestigious, classified château in Bordeaux and you sell 90% of your wine without lifting a marketing finger (en primeur, anyone?). So why would a region with centuries old traditions embrace social media platforms? As it happens, the itinerary for my inaugural trip to Bordeaux was decided by a Twitter post exploring that very…
Counter Culture goes Mainstream: The arrival of Weed Wine (part 2)
When 60’s folk icon Bob Dylan wrote “….everybody must get stoned,” he could never have imagined a counter culture drug would be so common, so regulated, sooooo corporate. But here we are at the end of 2017, pot will be legal in California come January and across Canada by July 1st. Riding into the middle…
Coming Jan 1/18: Cannabis Infused Sauvignon Blanc from one “Bad-Ass” California Winery
“This is the first-ever marijuana infused wine,” announces the weed-wine pitchman with a revolutionary fervor that makes my fellow wine writers at the Santa Rosa Wine Bloggers Conference lean in. “Our company is called Rebel Coast and we’re winemakers,” he continues, proudly displaying his green wine. Flowers of the marijuana plant are heated to activate…
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