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NEVIS BLUFF WINS BLUE-GOLD AND GOLD IN 2010 SYDNEY TOP 100
Celebration dinner huge success
Innovative, patented marketing approach
Want to have a holiday in an exotic Fijian resort?
2008 vintage shaping up superbly
We don't believe in submitting our wines to every competition that's going. It's more important to concentrate on consistency and quality than chasing the latest fad or partaking in a fickle lucky dip. But we do look for validation in some of the major events close to our main markets, particularly when they have a specific angle that is relevant to our style and objectives.
Hence the Sydney International Competition has been one of our favoured events, as it has a particular emphasis on wines that match quality food. Our 2007 Pinot Gris was awarded a Blue-Gold/Top 100 Award last week, meaning it has been placed amongst the top 5% of wines from the thirteen style categories (the wines in the Top 100 are firstly judged on quality before being judged with food, and a Blue-Gold/Top 100 essentially is a Double Gold). We last entered a Pinot Gris in 2004 and it also won the prestigious Blue-Gold, so this is a nice confirmation that we are still on track in producing world class Pinot Gris particularly suitable for discerning diners.
A Top 100 Gold Award was also awarded to our 2006 Pinot Noir. We don't wish to be immodest, but after the Gold awarded at the 2008 Air New Zealand Awards, this was no surprise. As we say, medals are not everything, but it's good to have the Aussies pay their respects to us!
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Nevis Bluff's 10-year celebration weekend in Queenstown was a great occasion for forty restaurateurs over 9/10 October. Twenty selected restaurants, being the biggest clients for Nevis Bluff, received an invitation for two people to a weekend at the award winning Hotel St Moritz, involving complimentary airfares, accommodation and a 10-year celebration dinner.
The highlight of the weekend was a wine tasting led by NBW's winemaker, Dean Shaw, followed by a mini-degustation menu designed around the pinot gris and pinot noir product of the hosts.
Guests included well known Auckland and Wellington establishments such as Euro, Cibo, O'Connell Street Bistro, Sails, Harbourside, Tribeca, Shed Five and St Johns (to name a few!), plus smaller high performers such as The Maple Room, New Yorker Steak House and Otago University Staff Club.
The weekend was designed to both demonstrate our gratitude for the restaurants' support and to launch an innovative marketing campaign. As the on-license trade has become well aware, Nevis Bluff does not believe in selling its premium products through supermarkets or wine stores and prefers to build relationships with long established restaurants of distinction.
As part of the celebration, a major promotion was revealed which will start on 1 November. Nevis Bluff will give away 5,000 bottles of its award winning wines to its loyal customers, through their patronage at partner restaurants.
This Queenstown weekend has now become an annual event and we hope to see both the same and new restaurateurs at next year's event!
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It is no secret that there is a wine lake throughout the world and it's becoming harder and harder to differentiate between brands. To establish exactly who our target market is we engaged a Christchurch consultancy firm, Concentrate Marketing, to interview and identify our market and the motivations for their purchase.
It will be no surprise to restaurateurs that we learnt our market is the "urban liberal"; the successful businessmen and their partners. People who appreciate quality and who are prepared to show and pay for it. Our market is business savvy, politically aware and well educated wine connoisseurs.
From this research we have built a campaign to both reward those intelligent Nevis Bluff supporters while providing a noticeable point of difference, and concurrently give our restaurateur partners a marketing advantage.
"How?", I hear you ask... with the launch of the NBW Little Black Books...
The LBB's are a series of books, whether business, political, artistic, or whatever, containing a collection of amusing stories, quotes and advice.
Housed in a patented attachment device (a promo piece tied around the neck of a bottle is just tacky), the LBB's are designed to create interest at the table and gain product recognition.
In particular, for the initial launch of the LBB, each booklet contains a unique code allowing the wine purchaser (or their lucky friend) to log online and receive a complimentary bottle of the same wine, delivered to their home for no cost other than packaging and courier fee!!
We believe we make one of the best products in New Zealand and we are prepared to reward our purchasers, some whom have been supporting us for a decade.
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Vomo Island Resort, a five-star Fijian hideaway, beckons for one NBW restaurateur partner. As a further part of our 10-year celebration, Nevis Bluff will send a couple from one restaurant to Vomo for 7 days next winter.
The rules are simple - the restaurant which sells the most between 1 November and 31 March next year wins, and the restaurant tells us who is going. The trip includes airfares, transfers and 7 nights' accommodation. Look up www.vomofiji.com to see what's on offer.
Many restaurateurs reading this may think that their restaurant would not stand a chance - and they couldn't be more wrong. We don’t sell to large mass producing restaurants, and it might be surprising just who can, and does, sell the most NBW wine. Good luck. We will let the top 15 restaurants know at the end January if they are in the running.
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Yes, that right, the 2008. Currently we are selling 2006 Pinot Noir and 2007 Pinot Gris. We don't believe in throwing our wines out the door as soon as they're bottled to get some cash flow. We believe in ageing our wine sufficiently to enable their complexity and style to evolve. It will not be until mid 2010 when we release our next vintages of 2008 Pinot Noir and 2008 Pinot Gris, both of which are bottle ageing superbly.
You may have noticed that we have "neglected" to mention the 2007 Pinot Noir. This is simply because we only make the wine if it is good enough. The 2007 pinot noir grapes were not up to our required standard, so we simply didn't make it.
We do really mean it when we say we are Pinot Specialists. |
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