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Online wine world creates new brand at LIWF

Published:  20 May, 2011

Wine's social media world got together at LIWF to create a new pan-European blend from scratch, design a label and launch it to market before the fair closed its doors.

Wine's social media world got together at LIWF to create a new pan-European blend from scratch, design a label and launch it to market before the fair closed its doors.


Thierry's joined forces with social media consulting firm Vrazon at the fair's Access Zone this year to develop the new wine brand, and social media users got involved to give their verdict. Disrupt, a blend of 50% Grüner Veltliner, 40% Falanghina and 10% Chardonnay from three different European countries, was the result.


Thierry's buying directors Lindsay Talas and Dominique Vrigneau, Thierry's winemaker, Jeneve Williams joined forces with Austria's Markus Huber, Emmanuel Laurent from Antonin Rodet, Burgundy and Italian winemaker, Giorgio Flessati to select the wines and come up with three different blends to show at the fair.


Robert McIntosh, director of Vrazon, told Harpers: "We wanted to 'disrupt' the view that wine shouldn't come from lots of places, and that creating a new brand takes ages."


The wine will be made in Burgundy ? a production of 6,600 bottles is expected ? and now that the blend has been decided and approved by the trade through a Twitter vote, it should be available for sale in the UK within four weeks, with a retail price tag of around £10.


The first stockist will be Naked Wines, who have agreed to list the wine on its new market place.


A spokeswoman for Thierry's said: "We invited feedback on the three blends from Naked Wines' Angels who were at the Access Zone, watching the initial blending session on the Tuesday. We also got feedback from wine bloggers and other visitors the Thursday afternoon on the final two blends selected. When the final blend had been chosen, we also asked them to tweet adjectives to describe the wine and these were incorporated in the Disrupt label which was designed on the stand over the three days by James Fleming of Gigantic Designs."


She added: "I think it's safe to say that this sort of project is bit of a first and it has certainly created a bit of excitement in the online wine world. The Thierry's blog has had around 500 visits in the last few days and we also used Twitter to communicate what was happening and have lots of new followers as a result."

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