With new world wines grabbing market share, the French are being forced to start marketing their products.
“Wine increasingly is becoming a consumer good, not a cultural exception,” said Pierre Courbon, international marketing director at OVS, a French company that was created to sell a new wine brand, Chamarré, which it intends to go head to head with consumer favorites from Australia, California, Chile and elsewhere. “Beer, spirits, vegetables, dairy products and even bread is branded. Why not wine?”
Until recently, such words might have been considered heresy in France, where many winemakers have an almost religious attachment to the idea that wines must reflect the specific attributes of the land on which they are grown, not the global characteristics of a brand. French law requires quality wines to be labeled accordingly, listing details like the region, the vineyard and the producer. But many consumers in markets like Britain and the United States now prefer to choose their wines according to the grape variety, like cabernet sauvignon or Riesling, rather than the name of the region where they were grown, like Bordeaux.
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