Commercial Strategy, Marketing, Press Relations And Digital Communication For The Wine, Food, And Wellness Sectors
April 5, 2019 / Erica Nonni
Erica Nonni spoke this week with WRSU radio, live from Rutgers University's Communication School Career Expo. Listen here for a bit about our agency, what we look for in entry-level candidates and when enthusiasm is better than experience.
Our client, Flahavan’s Irish Oats, is having a banner quarter. We spent 2018 doing consumer research and designing all-new packaging that better represents the brands’ dedication to family farming, renewable energy and naturally creamy oatmeal. With the new packs now proudly on grocery store shelves, we’ve turned to sharing Flahavan’s Oats with morning shows from network to network, with viewers tuning in from North to South!
Connecticut Live! (NBC) January 22, 2019
Good Day Connecticut (FOX) February 18, 2019
Studio 512 KNVA (CW, Austin) March 6, 2019
If you’re an accountant, your busy season is coming to a post-tax day close. If you’re in finance, the end of each quarter seems to mean the end of sleep. In higher education? I don’t envy you at finals time.
In the New York wine scene, ‘busy season’ traditionally means September and October. These are the months when wine brands or importers, in the case of imports - which is to say most of our client brands – sell into the restaurants and retail stores, which do their heaviest business over the holidays in the two months that follow. Q4 or ‘OND’ is a festive and frenetic period of portfolio tastings and long workdays for our partners in restaurants and wine retail.
For us, the wine season is September. In September, we don’t sleep much. To a wine-soaked calendar of portfolio tastings and industry dinners, we add Emmy Awards season, of which our client, Ferrari Trento, is the sparkling wine sponsor. And then there is Ferrari Trentodoc Camp, a four-day immersion experience in the Italian Alps. September is High Intensity Interval Training for professional wine lovers.
Then our plates are filled again (often literally) with oatmeal season from November to March. This is the busy season for our client, Flahavan’s Irish Oats, characterized by oatmeal sampling in ski resorts and supermarkets, creative sessions in the test kitchen with chefs and an annual St. Patrick’s Day campaign.
But this year, wine season came back in Q1 to New York. The smattering of portfolio, regional and thematic tastings that used to dot late January has grown into a serious promotional period that stretches right up to the start of the European trade shows of Prowein in March, Vinitaly in April and Vinexpo in May. The highlight this year New York calendar was surely Vinexpo NY, which will be back in force in 2019.
Last week, Nonni Strategic Marketing had the pleasure of working with Acker Merrall & Condit in promoting and marketing their first-ever Grande Fête de Bourgogne. Acker Merrall & Condit, the world’s leading wine auctioneer and authority on fine and rare wine, held a week-long celebration dedicated to the wines of Burgundy, those who make them, and those who love them. The Grande Fête de Bourgogne brought together serious Burgundy collectors and producers of unparalleled renown in a series of incredible events leading up to the first wine auction of the 2018 NYC season.
Despite one of the most turbulent weeks in Wall Street history, the wine market surged with confidence and optimism on Friday, February 9th in New York City, as Acker Merrall’s inaugural ‘Grande Fête de Bourgogne’ auction smashed 194 new world records with over $7 Million of sales. The firm’s $5 million plus pre-auction expectations were left in the rearview mirror as nearly 20% of the auction’s 1059 non-mixed lots set new world records.
The 'Grande Fête de Bourgogne' auction boasted direct consignments from eight of Burgundy’s greatest winemakers. Four Domaines debuted on the US auction stage via their direct consignments, including Domaine Duroche, a rising star of Gevrey-Chambertin, whose consignment began with the great 1969 vintage, and Haegelen-Jayer, the mythical "Ghost of Clos de Vougeot," with pristine, full-case consignments from 1989-2009 never before released until recently with Acker Merrall.
For the first time in the United States, Francois Labet's Château de la Tour represented the oldest Domaine-direct wines in the auction, with vintages dating back to 1959. The most significant debut came from Domaine Méo-Camuzet, whose reputation as one of Burgundy's best Domaines has long been established under the leadership of Jean-Nicolas Méo. This was the first time that wines were ever consigned directly from Méo-Camuzet’s cellars. The four Burgundy Domaines that completed the Great Eight of these Burgundy direct consignments needed no introduction, and the wines from Drouhin, Faiveley, Fourrier, and Comte Liger-Belair all set new world records with the offerings from their cellars.
Click here to read the full press release.
