LVMH Moët Hennessy has utilised its partnership with Scarlett Johansson in an international advertising campaign for its Moët & Chandon Champagne brand.
The campaign, which was announced yesterday (13 January), features the actress in three photographs, all of which can be viewed on the right. The images were shot at Trianon, a residence on the Moët & Chandon estate in Epernay.
The campaign includes print, outdoor and online advertising.
Johansson became Moët & Chandon’s first celebrity ambassador in March, 2009.
By: Stuart Todd | 14 January 2011
Burgundy’s wine trade body, the BIVB, is planning to invest EUR1.85m (US$2.5m) annually over the next three years to market the region’s wines in key export markets.
The export drive will focus on the US, UK, Belgium, Japan and China. It is part of a five-year strategy to make Burgundy “a world leader for great wines born out sustainable production methods,” said BIVB president Michel Baldassini today (14 January).
The BIVB was recently buoyed by encouraging results from its biggest export market, the UK, where volume and value sales rose by 23% and 16% respectively in the first nine months of 2010. If this trend continued in the final quarter, then losses incurred in 2009 would be almost wiped off, the BIVB said.
by Jane Anson in Bordeaux – Château Carmes Haut-Brion in Bordeaux has been bought for €18m – a record price. The property, in the Pessac-Léognan region, was bought by Patrice Pichet, head of Bordeaux real estate company Groupe Pichet. This is his first vineyard purchase.
Pichet reportedly paid €18m for the chateau in November 2010 from owners Didier Chantecaille-Furt and his daughter Penelope. The vineyard is located close to Château Haut Brion (the two estates shared the same owner, Jean de Pontac, for part of the 16th century).
Berry Bros describes Carmes as ‘a jewel of a property, positioned on the same bank of gravel (graves) as its more famous namesakes’. The 2009, which sells for £450 per case, was awarded four stars by Decanter at en primeur.
Steven Spurrier, tasting the wine, praised its ‘concentrated and rather earthy blackcurrant nose, good broad fruit with warmth and vigour’ its acids and its ‘fleshy charm’.
Its vines today cover 4.7ha, with a further 3 hectares of parkland. This means the sale price equates to €3.8m per hectare – which according to local paper Sud Ouest is the highest amount ever paid per hectare for a vineyard in Bordeaux, even taking into account that some of that price will have been paid for the adjoining park, and attractive 19th century chateau.
Typically, vineyards change hands in the most prestigious appellations such as Pauillac or St Emilion for around €1m per hectare, and up to €1.5m in exceptional cases.
In 2007, Martin and Olivier Bouygues paid €140m for the 65ha Château Montrose in St Estephe (about €2m per hectare), and the de Bouard family of Chateau Angelus paid €10m for a 50% stake in the 6ha Château Bellevue in St Emilion, also in 2007.
SAFER (Société d’aménagement foncier et d’établissement rural), the official body that records all land sales in France, puts the average price per hectare in Pessac-Leognan at €140,000.
Alexander Hall, director of Bordeaux-based consulting firm Vineyard Intelligence told Decanter.com, ‘The real estate market has changed since Bouygues bought Montrose, and if Pichet was buying simply from a winemaking perspective, then he would appear to be paying over the odds.
‘However, he is a real estate developer and his motivations might not be entirely focused on the winemaking potential of the property. It is after all nearly 10 hectares in total of prime real estate close the centre of Bordeaux.’
Pichet was unavailable for comment, but his official press release suggests otherwise.
‘This prestigious purchase represents a diversification of interests for the Groupe Pichet, and we are already planning a series of investments, starting with the building of new vinification facilities, and the restoration of the park to encourage biodiversity.’ www.decanter.com
by Rebecca Gibb in Auckland- The Australian wine industry is rallying to support flood victims in Queensland with a
raffle and a half million-dollar donation from Foster’s.
Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer has launched the Australian Wine Trade Relief Raffle and multinational drinks company, Foster’s, has pledged AUS$500,000 (£315,000) in cash and donations to help those who have been affected by the floods.
The rising waters have now claimed at least 10 lives, and left 56,000 properties without power. Ninety people are still missing, and evacuation warnings have been issued in Brisbane.
Stelzer told Decanter.com: ‘There are so many people in the Australian wine industry who have contacted me to say they want to do something to alleviate the situation in Queensland. We have close family and friends that have been affected and now is the time to rally the industry.’
In the first 24 hours of launching the raffle on website www.clearaboutwine.com.au, many wineries and wine-related businesses have donated prizes including lunch for six at The Lane Vineyard’s restaurant in Adelaide Hills. Stelzer added. ‘I hope there will be a six-figure sum raised.’
A Lockyer Creek winery, 100km west of Brisbane, has been devastated by flash floods yet has donated four cases of wine to the raffle.
Jason Kaeser of Kaeserberg Vineyard, said: ‘I had a small vineyard and winery on the bank of Lockyer Creek until the flood took it all yesterday. My wife and I are absolutely heartbroken but so grateful that we just made it out alive with our three dogs.’
In Harrisville, local grape grower and wine maker Mick Hall, told the Sydney Morning Herald he had lost about $15,000 (£9500) worth of fruit. ‘We were picking some grapes on Sunday, got half way up the row and that was it, it was pouring rain and we [are going to] lose the lot,’ Mr Hall said.
Australian Wine Trade Relief Raffle tickets can be purchased online at www.clearaboutwine.com.au or from selected retail outlets. Tickets cost $30 each and will be drawn in early March.
Klagen gegen Weinwerbeabgabe erneut abgewiesen: Das Oberverwaltungsgericht Koblenz (OVG) hat die Klagen zweier Winzer gegen die Abgaben für den Deutschen Weinfonds und die Gebietsweinwerbungen abgewiesen und dadurch entsprechende erstinstanzliche Urteile der Verwaltungsgerichte bestätigt. Das OVG hat nicht nur wie bei der vorhergehenden Entscheidung im September 2010 die Abgaben für den Deutschen Weinfonds, sondern nun auch die Abgaben für die Gebietsweinwerbungen als verfassungsgemäß eingestuft. -gg- www.wein-und-markt.de