Jiles's Blog

CHAMPAGNE BULLETIN SEPTEMBER 2022

In this month’s Champagne Bulletin

• Setting Retail pricing – a science or a shot in the dark?
• What exactly is a Private Brand?
• New champagne brand releases
• Direct to Consumer sales – Some pros and cons
• Harvest 2022 – a note of caution

 

How do you set the Recommended Retail Price for your brand?

This can seem like a very big question; there are so many factors that influence the price that the subject can seem bewilderingly complex.

• What are my costs
• What margin do I want to / need to make?
• Should my brand be more expensive or less expensive than brands already in the market?
• How many bottles do I want to / need to sell to meet your objectives?

to name but a few,

It’s certainly an important question so I don’t want to make light of it, but it’s important, in my view, to remember that there are no hard and fast rules about pricing and you may have more flexibility than you imagine.

Unless you’re dealing with a monopoly such as in Canada, there’s no set formula that says that if your cost is X then your retail price must be Y. You can charge whatever you want provided that you can justify the price you’re asking.

Take the case of this wine maker in Italy for example:

Credit: Facebook/ Via Maria 10

Tullio Masoni claims to have the smallest vineyard in the world. It’s on the rooftop of his apartment in the Reggio Emilia district and yields just 29 bottles of red wine per year.

With such a limited production you’d expect the price to be fairly high, but $5,000 USD per bottle does seem to be a little on the steep side! Nevertheless, that’s the price Sig. Masoni is asking for a bottle of his wine.

At that price you’d expect it to be something very special, and to attract the attention of wine experts everywhere, anxious to taste this marvel, but the risk with that is that any adverse opinion would cast serious doubt on the price. No need for Sig. Masoni to worry about that however – he says that his wine is not meant for drinking.

I’m not sure whether to put this down to Sig. Masoni’s unshakable confidence (arrogance?) or to concede that he has found the most brilliant marketing strategy ever, but it all goes to show that you can demand whatever price you want and some people, somewhere, sometimes will pay it.

Read on to the section below about new brands for another example of ‘creative’ retail pricing.

What’s the difference between a Personalised Label and a Private Brand?

Every industry has its own vocabulary and Champagne is no different, so perhaps it would be helpful to clarify some of them as it relates to creating your own brand.

Personalised Labels are mostly commonly found on wine gift web sites.

At the simplest level the gift company has a stock of bottles that it has already purchased from a champagne maker and you, the customer, can choose from a selection of template labels into which you can insert your choice of text/logo/image etc.  These labels can look very simple and cheap or, depending on the company you’re dealing with, can occasionally look a little more professional, but they can rarely, if ever, be called stylish or elegant.

The customer has no control over any other aspect of the packaging, nor over the choice of champagne which, as mentioned above, has already been purchased by the gift company.

Importantly, the customer does not own the brand name which remains the property of the champagne maker and his or her name features prominently on the label.

Some more specialist suppliers offer the customer the chance to design their own labels and this is certainly a big step up from the template labels on offer at the lower end of the market. Nevertheless, the customer will not have much, if any, say over the rest of the packaging nor over the choice of champagne which, as mentioned above, will have been pre-selected by the supplier.

What uses are Personalised labels suited for?

They are ideal for private or corporate gifts because of the novelty factor, the relatively low cost and of course the opportunity they provide to promote a company or product.

They are not suitable, in my opinion, as the foundation of a champagne business because of all the drawbacks mentioned above.

On the other hand, they can be effective to raise funds for charitable causes. Two excellent examples of this type of use are the champagnes endorsed by Roger Daltry to support Teen Cancer America and more recently the champagne launched to support the Royal British Legion which is an organisation that supports armed forces veterans.

The arrangement about the respective share of the profits from sales is a matter between the charity concerned and the supplier, but the brand name never belongs to the charity.

Private Brands

There are several words that crop up.

Sometimes they are referred to as ‘White Label’ brands or ‘Buyer’s Own Brands’ (BoB), but I am not a fan of ether of these terms because, in my experience, the objective of such projects is to buy at the lowest possible cost and in large quantities so as to promote the end product as a ‘Bargain’ product in supermarkets and similar retail outlets. To meet this objective, the packaging is usually simple and inexpensive, although it can be attractive, and the champagne is rarely of top quality, although there are a few exceptions.

In some instances, the brand actually belongs to the customer, but in others, the brand remains the property of the champagne maker who produces on behalf of the buyer. In these cases, the customer may choose to protect their position by agreeing with the champagne maker that this particular brand will be supplied exclusively to the customer in question and to no one else.

Many supermarket brands fall into this category

I admit that the term Private Brand is my own invention because it describes the sort of exclusivity and quality that is needed, in my view, if the intention of the brand creator is to build a business based on brand equity and image.

This is not to say that Private Brand champagne has to be disproportionately more expensive than others - excellent quality can be found at reasonable prices.

The great advantage of a Private Brand is, as the name implies, that the brand name belongs to the customer and name is registered in his or her name with the authorities in Champagne. In addition, customers who choose a Private Brand usually wish to have more control over all aspects of the packaging and are looking for something more distinctive in terms of packaging.

Most important of all is that fact that the fruits of success, if and when it comes, all revert to the brand owner.

New Brands

Two new champagne brands were launched recently in the USA.

The first is another celebrity brand of the type seen over recent years across the whole spectrum of wine and spirits. In this instance it’s Scott Disick who is the personality behind the brand. For those of you who haven’t heard of Scott Disick ,he is the former partner of Kourtney Kardashian and regularly appears on TV in the US.

The champagne is made by a company located not far from Reims and one which I know quite well; I have introduced several clients to the same produce over the past year or two.

I am however surprised to read that the mission of this new brand is, according to one of the co-founders “ to bring quality and innovation in the Champagne/sparkling wine category”

Apart from the packaging, which is admittedly quite eye-catching, it’s not obvious to me how this champagne brings innovation to the category.

In addition, the retail price of $150 per bottle seems hard to justify given what I know about the maker of the champagne, unless of course Mr. Disick is using the same sort of marketing strategy as Sig. Masoni above.

The second new brand is much more interesting in my view.

It’s called Rendez-vous and has been launched under the brand name Diane Salem by co-founder  Fiona Perrin, a French woman who has lived in the USA for many years.

The brand offers a few interesting ideas that I feel, form a more solid basis for marketing than the attributes proposed by Mr. Disick’s brand, although they’re not entirely convincing.

Rendez-vous is said to be ‘natural and vegetarian - claims that are easy to make but for which no evidence is presented. Indeed, the same claim could be made for many champagnes these days.

More interesting is the fact that the accent is very much on the fact that this is pitched as a brand for women who are undoubtedly very influential in consumers’ decision about whether to choose champagne or some other drink. Ms Perrin emphasises the fact that she is not a native of Champagne and that she has had to build her network from scratch over many years.

In contrast to Mr. Disick’s champagne, Rendez-vous will be retailed at about $50 USD. It’s hard, to say the least, to understand exactly what can justify the disparity in price between the two new brands but my guess is that the target consumers are very different and that just goes to show that there will always be customers at any price point if you know where to find them and what they are looking for.

Rendez-vous is apparently an organically produced champagne and consequently is made in relatively small quantities, so sales targets are also modest in scale. My understanding is that Rendez-vous will be sold exclusively online which leads nicely on to the next topic.

Direct to consumer sales

Whatever type of champagne you wish to create, the fact remains that the bottles produced must be sold.

Traditionally the point of sale would be a wine shop, a bar, a restaurant, or a hotel. However, since the advent of the internet it has been much easier to sell directly to the final consumer. This is the term usually applied to sales direct from the wine maker to the customer, but since such sales are invariably made on-line, the term also applies to all on-line sales.

This distribution channel which started as something of a novelty, is now assuming very significant proportions. During lockdowns Direct to Consumer (DtC ) sales took on a critical importance for many wine producers and DtC has become established as an indispensable part of every marketing and sales plan in most global markets including the U.K.

Sales of English wine increased by 69% in the period 2019 to 2021 and again by 31% in 2021. In the same two-year period DtC sales grew by 265% and the channel accounted for 57% of all sales in 2021, up from 36% in 2019.  

Source*Wine GB

In the USA the story is much the same, except on a far larger scale

According to Statista, the total value of DtC shipments in the USA reached 4.2 billion USD in 2021.

As mentioned above, lockdowns had a significant impact on DtC sales because for many months people couldn’t go out to their favourite bar or restaurant and instead ordered wine to enjoy at home, so as things get back to normal, we shouldn’t expect this fast rate of DtC sales growth to continue.

Interestingly it wasn’t only sales volume that grew over the past couple of years, the value per bottle also increased: by a record 11.8% to $41.16 per bottle ( again as reported by Statista)

Another important attraction about DtC sales is that you are paid before the bottle is despatched to the customer and paid the full retail price. This is in marked contrast to the situation with bars and restaurants that pay wholesale prices and demand generous credit terms.

So, what’s not to like about DtC sales?

Well, there’s an old adage inn the wine business that you build brand image and reputation in the on-trade (bars, clubs hotels and restaurants) and you build volume in the off-trade (wine shops and supermarkets) but you do things in that order: on-trade first and then off-trade.

The difficulty about Dtc is that people are reluctant to purchase wines on-line that they have never tasted or never heard of, and the on-trade is usually the place where people first experience a brand.

This reluctance to try new brands can be overcome with great on-line marketing and by personal recommendation from a friend, colleague or influencer – that’s where celebrity endorsement comes in – but something about the brand has to tempt the consumer to get their bank card out and make the initial purchase on-line.

Finally, on a note of optimism tinged by a little caution…

2022 Champagne harvest double last year’s

You will have read already about the booming sales of champagne over the past year and the consequent shortage of stock. Worries about being able to meet the burgeoning demand meant that there was a lot riding on this year’s harvest, so it was very welcome news to learn that it was an excellent harvest in terms of quality and quantity, and much is being made of the fact that this year’s harvest was double the size of last year’s.

That is, of course, great news and a catchy headline, but before we all get carried away and think that pressures on pricing will ease immediately, don’t forget that a) last year’s harvest was awful so a harvest of double that size is still not extraordinary, b) it will be  a few years yet before the wines from this year’s crop actually make it into the market, so caution and modest expectation will remain the watchwords for a while longer yet.

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As ever, if you have any comments or questions about this month’s bulletin, please send me an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and I’ll do my best to answer promptly.

Champagne Bulletin August 2022

In this month’s Champagne Bulletin

• Latest news from this year’s harvest
• What challenges to expect if you’re thinking of creating a private brand champagne
  • Supply constraints and forecasting
  • Prices are on the up
  • The importance of market research

Harvest 2022 – First impressions

Well, for a moment or two in the run-up to the harvest, it looked as though a very rare beast indeed was about to make an appearance: the happy vigneron.

For a few weeks it appeared that all the lights were on green for a superb harvest

• No significant attacks of mildew or other diseases all year
• Relatively little damage done by Spring frost
• Plenty of sunshine to ripen the grapes
• No major hailstorms to devastate the vineyards
• Vines laden with bunches to give an abundant yield

In short, everything a vigneron could hope for.

Alas, it was not quite as good as they had hoped, but on the whole things have turned out pretty well after the last two difficult years.

 So, what is preventing an outburst of unbridled joy in Champagne?

The sugar levels in the grape were exceptionally high due to all the sunshine this summer, but consequently the level of acidity was on the low side. This probably means that vintage champagne for 2022 probably won’t have as long an ageing potential as some of the really great vintages.

The lack of rain for much of the year has produced quite small grapes with thick skins. This not only makes pressing more difficult, it also means that the total weight of the bunches is on the low side too; this in turn means that the total yield is not a high as some had been hoping for.

Still, these are fairly minor complaints and there is still much to be grateful for and any vigneron that complains too loudly must take a lot of pleasing.

As ever, the first real indicators of the quality of wines from this vintage will only be known when the still wines are tasted in Springtime next year, but it’s ‘ So far, so good’.

Supply constraints and forecasting

One of the most critical factors in making, marketing and selling champagne is the importance of forecasting. In fact, this cannot be emphasised enough

Understandably, many of my clients have high ambitions for the number of bottles of their private brand that they plan to sell. On the one hand, this is great – it’s important to be ambitious and to believe in your future success; on the other hand, it’s also critical to understand what is and what is not possible.

Unlike products like vodka and gin which can be made almost anywhere, and which can be produced in a short amount of time, champagne needs a minimum of 15 months ageing in the cellars before it can be sold and generally speaking, it’s better, in the interests of quality, to leave the champagne to age for 2,3,4 years or more before it is sold.

It follows that if your initial sales forecast is for 5,000 bottles, but you find that these sell out so quickly that you want to order another 20,000 bottles for delivery as soon as possible, that probably will not be possible.

Although a certain amount of flexibility is built into all good sales and production plans, it is vitally important to understand that forecasting in far more important for champagne than for many other products.

What makes the situation even more tricky at the moment is that current stocks in Champagne are as low as they have been for 20 years or so due to two years of small harvests coupled with a huge increase in demand from all around the world. Things are so tight that some champagne makers are simply refusing new orders or limiting the number of bottles they sell to each customer.

A case in point is the new champagne launched by Pommery in collaboration with the Japanese rockstar Yoshiki. The new champagne was launched on September 1^st and the initial 10,000 bottle production sold out in 10 minutes.

That sounds great, but it will be next year before Pommery can supply more bottles to get sales going again.

Despite these difficulties, there are still many champagne makers with some spare capacity who are interested in working on private brands… if you know where to look and who to contact.

Prices on the up

After reading about the supply issues, you won’t be too surprised to learn that prices are going up and will probably continue on that path for the foreseeable future. That is what inevitably happens when strong demand comes up against limited supply.

In addition, the price of grapes is going up partly because the market is being affected by major brands offering more-than-usually-generous deals to growers in order to secure grape supplies

Add into this mix the already high prices for vineyards in Champagne, plus price increases for other raw materials and it’s easy to see that the days when you could source champagne at €10/bottle are long gone and a more realistic minimum these days is €15/bottle unless you are placing a particularly large order.

Nevertheless, there is much evidence that consumers are prepared to pay good prices for quality champagne and consequently attractive margins are available for better quality champagne that is attractively presented and well marketed.

The importance of market research

A few days ago, I came across an article that at first, I thought had no relevance whatsoever for the champagne business and even less for anyone who planning to create a private champagne brand. However, on reflection I realised that the article highlighted one really important principle about launching any new brand, including a private champagne brand.

The article was about the market for plant-based meat substitutes which has turned very quickly from boom to bust.

A few years ago, plant-based meat substitutes were a hot topic that attracted several start-up companies with high expectations. The authors of the article suggest that ‘This was always about billionaire investor push, not consumer pull. It will be one of the biggest failures in food industry history.’

The article goes on to ask ‘Why did so many people ignore the clear technical, taste and texture challenges faced by meat substitutes? Why did they ignore the weak marketing proposition? Why did they ignore the risk in the investor-fuelled hype? Why did they ignore the food culture barriers to this category? Why? Because they preferred 'believing' over 'thinking'.

But what’s this got to do with champagne? Quite a lot as it happens and it’s all about the taste of the champagne.

When my clients visit Champagne to meet champagne makers and to taste a range of champagnes to find the one that they prefer, I always emphasise that it is not necessarily the client’s own taste preference that matters, it’s what their target customers want that is the crucial factor.

To give one example, there’s been a tendency in Champagne over the past few years to reduce the amount of added sugar to create a drier taste profile. This added sugar is called the ‘dosage’ in French and broadly speaking it has been reduced from about 10 – 12 grams of sugar per litre to nearer 7 – 8 g/l

This is the level of added sugar used by many of the best-selling brands in the world and one can reasonably conclude that for most consumers, this is the level of sweetness that they expect and enjoy in champagne.

Nevertheless, amongst those whose knowledge of champagne is much more developed – journalists, sommeliers and many people actively engaged in the wine trade – the accepted wisdom is that the lower the amount of added sugar, the better, even down to zero added sugar.

The risk of this approach is that it may put too much focus on the preferences of the relatively few people with expert-level knowledge whilst ignoring what the general public wants.

If we refer back to the article about plant-based meat substitutes, the moral of the story is that what is needed is more thinking and less believing

Rather than choosing what you like and believing that other people will like the same thing, it is crucial to identify your target customers and understand their tastes and expectations. The two things may be the same, but it is dangerous to assume that they are without careful consideration.

That’s all for this month. Next month’s bulletin will be out in a little under four weeks from now and in the meantime, if you have any questions or comments, you can email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Until next month

 

CHAMPAGNE BULLETIN JULY 2022

In this month’s Champagne Bulletin

• A good time to be in the Champagne business - Champagne market value to boom in coming decade
• But there are some headwinds too – input costs are rising too
• The most expensive bottle of champagne ever sold
• Harvest news and reserves

You may remember that just a few months ago the Comité Champagne announced that the total value of champagne shipped in 2021 reached the record level of 5.7 billion euros or about 7 billion USD

Coming after two pretty dismal years in 2019 and 2020, the news was greeted with much celebration and confidence that Champagne had turned the corner and was once again on the path towards buoyant sales and decent profits, but even the most bullish champagne makers would probably be surprised by a recent study that forecasts that the value of the Champagne market will keep on powering ahead in the next 10 years.

A new study lead by Future Market Insights, an economic analysis group in Great Britain, believes that by 2032 the value of champagne shipments will have surged upwards to over 11 billion dollars thanks to an annualised growth rate of 5.08%

What’s driving the growth?

There seem to be a number of trends all converging to the benefit of champagne

• Although I wouldn’t go so far as to say that drinking Champagne has become an everyday event, it does seem that the Champenois are succeeding in finding the right balance between two potentially conflicting objectives: making champagne the first choice of an ever-growing number of consumers whilst still retaining the exclusive aura of luxury and that has always been the hallmark of Champagne

• More and more people see champagne as a drink to enjoy on informal occasions when they just want to have fun instead of just a drink for rare and special occasions.

• At the same time, as more consumers enter the world of champagne, they are discovering that not all champagnes are the same and they are eager to try something new such as rosé champagne, vintage champagne or low-dosage champagne all of which command a premium compared to non-vintage champagne.

• This means that the average price per bottle is moving steadily upwards as consumers are less likely to choose a ‘bargain basement’ ‘brand.

• Champagne drinking has had a boost as bars, clubs and restaurants are seeing business return to something approaching normal.

• Decades of investment in developing new markets is beginning to bear fruit. Although the USA is by far the largest market for Champagne, accounting for just under 25% of total sales value, other markets in Europe, Asia and elsewhere are growing fast.

 Still some issues ahead

Those of you who are already working with me on creating your own champagne brand will already know that the lead times are getting longer.

Sourcing the bottles of champagne has become more challenging over the past six months as dwindling stocks at several wine makers cannot be replaced following two consecutive small harvests. (but see below for more on this)

However, it’s the supply and production of the packaging that are really causing delays. Whether it’s foils, corks, labels or boxes, everything seems to be in short supply and costing more than a year ago.

Another significant issue is transport, particularly sea freight

As explained in a recent article in Drinks Business

From next year, a new law from the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) will require all ships to calculate their annual carbon intensity based on a vessel’s emissions for the cargo it carries. Shipping companies will be required to demonstrate that their emissions are progressively coming down.

The option is there to retrofit ships with devices to lower emissions but by far the easiest and cheapest way of meeting the new requirements is to simply slow down sailing. For companies with older fleets, this choice will be particularly favourable.

Given that a 10% drop in cruising speed can slash fuel usage by almost 30%, many shipping bosses are expected to put the proverbial brakes on as they sail into 2023.

As any Champagne maker will tell you, now more than ever ‘Patience is a virtue’

A new record price at auction

Image from the Instagram account of  Champagne Avenue Foch

Last month saw yet another Champagne record broken – this time for the world’s most expensive bottle of Champagne : 2.5 million dollars. That’s a large chunk of money, although to be fair, it was a magnum.

You might well ask what made this bottle worth so much

Well, it has very little to do with the champagne inside the bottle and everything to do with the NFTs associated with the sale.

The bottle was the brainchild of Shammi Shinh, a London-based businessman, self-styled champagne connoisseur and, more importantly, an authority on NFTs. It was a meeting between him and the artist Mig that lead to the creation of this record-breaking bottle of champagne.

Printed on the bottle are 5 NFTs designed by Mig who is the creator of the NFT collections The Bored Ape Yacht Club and The Sneaky Vampire Syndicate NFT and it is these unique and rare NFTs on the bottle that warranted the huge price tag.

The champagne itself comes from a small producer in the village of Chamery by the name of Allouchery-Deguerne. It’s a blend of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Meunier from Premier Cru vineyards and it’s a vintage champagne from the 2017 harvest which means the Champagne is not very old for a vintage cuvée

Since Allouchery-Deguerne’s regular non- vintage cuvée sells for around just €15 a bottle, it would seem that the value of this exceptional bottle lies almost entirely in the NFTs

A great harvest in prospect

With demand for Champagne unexpectedly booming since mid-2021,  stocks of bottles in cellars across the region are disappearing rapidly because there are too few bottles to replace them after a combination of appalling weather in 2021 and what many say was a strategical error in 2020 which led to both harvests being very small.

Recently several smaller producers have been turning away customers because they just don’t have enough bottles to supply them

But now we have some better and much-needed news: this year’s harvest promises to be a bumper crop and, even more importantly, the Comité Champagne has announced that the amount of grapes that can be picked and made into champagne has been set this year at 12,00 kg per hectare which is what champagne makers have been crying out for to replenish their stocks.

Equally important, there have also been quite significant reforms made to the system of reserve wines, reforms designed to avoid peaks and troughs of supply in future

There are many ramifications involved in the reserve system but in essence it’s a mechanism whereby producers can pick more grapes than the official allowance as long as those grapes are not used immediately to make champagne, but instead are turned into still wine and stored in vats pending the day it needs to be released to meet shortages due to increasing demand or future poor harvests.

The promise of a large harvest this year coupled with access to reserves when needed, should greatly ease the pressure on supply in the foreseeable future.

As for the quality of the harvest, it’s too early to say but we should have an initial idea once picking starts in the final few days of August.

Until next month…

 

CHAMPAGNE BULLETIN JUNE 2022

In this month’s Champagne Bulletin

• As shipments continue to grow, the big question on everyone’s lips in Champagne right now is ‘What will this year’s harvest be like?’
• More success stories for private wine brands
• The two faces of Champagne: NFTs and SGV

 

If you’ve been following the news of the weather in France this year you would be forgiven for thinking that the prospects for this year’s harvest in Champagne are not looking great.

There were reports of severe and widespread frosts in April, then of violent storms that left many vineyards badly damaged and more recently, to add to the woes of the vignerons, there have been exceptionally high temperatures that could potentially fry the grapes on the vines.

All this is true, yet for the most part it was wine-growing regions in the south and south-west that were affected and Champagne has come out of all this relatively unscathed and it’s a case of ‘ So Far, So Good’.

Size matters

Of course, everyone would like the quality of the grapes to be brilliant, but this year, the size of the harvest is probably more important, and that issue will be decided in the next two months.

The importance of the question needs to be set in context:

In the month of May champagne shipments continued their upward trend that has been unbroken for more than a year. Of course, the past two unusual years don’t necessarily provide the most reliable basis of comparison on a month-by-month basis, so it’s more relevant to look at the Moving Annual Total (MAT) which shows the trend over a 12-month period.

This shows that the total number of bottles shipped over the past 12 months reached 335 million bottles – that’s only a couple of million bottles shy of the highest figure ever recorded and the trend is still upwards.

This would be unmitigated good news if it weren’t for the fact that, for reasons that are not necessarily linked to the amount of grapes available to pick, the weight of grapes picked in past two harvests has been disappointingly small.

This has resulted in stocks in the cellars, more or less all across Champagne, being low, or even very low, to the extent that some champagne makers have taken the decision to simply stop sales to some countries or customers. It’s a painful decision but if you simply don’t have enough bottles, what else can you do?

The timing of the harvest is becoming ever more clear with every passing week and judging from the development of the vines it appears that picking with start in the first week of September. This is based on the rough and ready calculation that one has to wait 90 days after the flowering of the vines and, this year, that happened in early June, about 10 days earlier than the historical average.

That brings us back to the size of this year’s harvest and given the number of different actors in Champagne each of whom may have differing priorities, coming up with an answer that suits everybody is not easy.

Just about everyone agrees on the general principle that it needs to be a big harvest, but not always for the same reasons

The most obvious argument for a large harvest is that it will bring supply back in line with current demand. This has traditionally been the primary consideration when the picking quota is fixed each year.

When one looks deeper into the matter however one might conclude that the famous brands would not mind too much if supply continued to lag behind demand. After all the appeal of an established brand is that it can benefit from strong demand and limited supply to increase prices and margins which is the ultimate objective for the big brands.

At the other end of the scale are the hundreds of small producers and the thousands of vine growers who supply grapes to the larger houses. Most people in these groups are in favour of larger harvests but for slightly different reasons.

For many in these groups the main concern is survival and if the harvest quota is too low, the former group cannot pick enough grapes to produce the number of bottles they need to make profit, and the latter group cannot earn enough revenue from selling grapes and may be forced to sell their vineyards.

And who would be the most likely buyers in that case?

Many would say the big houses who have the desire and financial means to buy more vineyards but who, according to some, would thereby increase their influence over the entire Champagne industry to an unhealthy extent.

Faced with this complex situation and many heterogeneous interests, one organisation, Les Vignerons Indépendents de Champagne has already put forward some innovative proposals that, they say, take a more sensible long-term view rather than just looking at supply and demand over a short period.

They argue for a minimum quota fixed for an entire 5 year period, subject only to there being enough grapes on the vines. In addition, they are calling for increases in the amount of wine that can be held in reserve in abundant harvest years and which would enable the smaller operators to keep going in the event of a small harvest due to natural, rather than economic, reasons.

The next couple of months should reveal much more about all these topics, but, as ever in Champagne, there’s far more going on behind the scenes than the average champagne consumer would ever imagine.

Private brands

There continues to be a stream of success stories in the press about successful celebrity wine brands

Singer song writer Gary Barlow has launched a range of wines from Spain and Jon Bon Jovi has launched a rosé wine from Languedoc.

Meanwhile, Kylie Minogue’s brand goes from strength to strength in the UK with sales of over a million bottles and a brand value estimated to be over £18 million pounds sterling - No wonder she's smiling !

Picture: Drinks Business

You don’t have to be a global celebrity to create your own wine brand (although it helps!) and you don’t need to sell over a million bottle to have a success on your hands.

A strong idea, a good network, careful planning, and meticulous execution count for a lot, so if you’d like to discuss your own champagne brand, contact me by email for an exploratory discussion.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The two sides of Champagne: NFT – SGV

Many champagne lovers don’t realise that Champagne is a bit like an iceberg – they get to see and enjoy the relatively small number of well-known brands (less than 50 I would say) which exude the imagery of opulence and luxury on which much of the success of champagne has been built. That’s perfectly understandable because these brands are widely available, often well-advertised and account for the lion’s share of all champagne sales.

In contrast, there are hundreds of other brands made by thousands of small producers most of whom, despite the often-excellent quality of their wine, enjoy nothing like the wide distribution and public awareness of the bigger brands.

This dichotomy was brought into stark relief recently by the publicity around NFTs or Non-Fungible Tokens and by the latest marketing campaign launch by the Syndicat Général de Vignerons, a body representing the lesser-known and smaller champagnes mentioned above.

NFTs have been used in many industries in recent years to authenticate the provenance of products but their introduction into the very traditional wine industry is much more recent and three companies, Winechain, Blockbar and Wokenwine have been in the press in the past couple of weeks.

All three companies offer benefits that will appeal first and foremost to serious wine lovers and collectors, most of whom are also very wealthy. Consequently, the wines which use NFT technology are invariably the rarest, most prestigious and most expensive in the world, in short, wines whose authenticity must be proven beyond any doubt to those involved in wine investing, be that auction houses, collectors or the producers themselves.

A common ambition of the people and companies involved in wine NFTs is to attract a new and younger set of clients into the world of wine investing whilst enhancing and perpetuating the aura of opulence and exclusivity associated with the wine collector’s lifestyle and the products he or she buys.

Until now, NFTs have been adopted almost exclusively by spirits brands, but a few iconic champagne brands such as Pierre Peters, Jacques Selosse and Bérêche & Fils have just placed a few selected cuvees with Wokenwine and it surely won’t be long before a few leading champagne brands take advantage of this cutting edge, dynamic and youthful trend.

Contrast this approach with the marketing campaign just launched by the Syndicat Général de Vignerons which comprises a series of pictures of real champagne makers designed to promote the many different styles of champagne and the character of the people who make them.

Bear in mind that because this campaign will be used in France rather than export markets, it is subject to very strict advertising rules that prohibit any suggestion that might link the consumption of alcohol with increased success, happiness or enjoyment.

The purpose of NFTs is prove the authenticity of products that are rare and expensive as evidenced by the screenshot above from Blockbar’s website. The imagery associated with those brands is one of luxury and aspiration – in a word, it is exclusive.

The SGV campaign provides a different sort of authenticity conveyed via images of real people. The products concerned are down-to-earth but that too has a value that many will find appealing – in a word the imagery is inclusive.

Both approaches have their place and their own value. Without doubt both are worth discovering although I must admit to finding the SGV campaign really brilliant and I like it so much that I can’t resist posting one more picture from the series

 Until next month…

JH