The estate had just been bought by Mark Dixon, CEO of REGUS business centre. His aim was to transform the Chateau de Berne (CDB) into a “new-world” winery with multiple activities as well as re-look the wine bottle packaging.
My brief:
Re-think the branding of CDB from bottles to wine experience.
Tools:
Trip to South Africa, Australia & California to discover the wine experience at some of the best estates.
Results:
Branding of bottles.
Change to a square shaped bottle rather than round. Use glass stoppers instead of corks. Corks are expensive and the best ones should be reserved for premium wines. Our wines are of a high quality, but are primarily rosé, which is consumed rapidly (doesn’t keep more than 3 years). Corks are still kept on our premium wines.
keep label sober with stained glass logo and dark colours.
Defining the wine experience…
I noted that CDB already had many facilities, such as a hotel, cookery school, picnic jazz etc. Each element had to be improved. In the Southern Hemisphere, the estates sell about 60% of their wines through the cellar door experience. They encourage families to come and spend the day, indulge in diverse activities, enjoy and buy their wines and commit to the wine club.
At CDB, we tried to mirror the efforts made by Mondavi Estate in California.
We improved our hotel, from 15 to 23 rooms and got Relais & Chateau status.
We improved our concert facilities and went for more international musicians.
We increased our weddings and private events proposals, adapting empty rooms into meeting rooms and wedding reception halls.
We also improved our cookery school, with a top chef, providing mouth-watering recipes that are typically Provencal and that were a perfect match to our wines…
And we provided some wonderful wine-tasting experiences!!!
Sjliney wine & tourism development 