The new wave of wine brands

Abstract

Wine branding is a series of complex marketing propositions intended to sell wine as a ‘brand’ – a product marketed much more thanks to its individual name and image rather than to its original quality. Wine brands can be basically divided in two distinct groups: some have called them ‘benign’ (a.k.a ‘historic’ or ‘classical’ - as for Champagne and the Bordeaux châteaux, for ex.) and ‘modern’ brands. ‘Modern’ wine brands are usually built upon a base of elastic supply (to maintain consistency) and planned promotion, most are owned big multinational companies, are standardized and aimed at the international market taste and a determined price level, lacking in diversity and terroir tipicity. In this study, the author describes how these ‘modern brands’ are structured and what are their marketing tools, run through examples of successful wine brands, and describe about their ads and cons for international consumers.