'Le Vin de Merde' wins wine marketing crapshoot
Last Updated: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 | 12:29 PM ET
CBC News
A vintner in France has found unlikely success with a new wine crudely called Le Vin de Merde, which loosely translates as "crap wine."
Jean-Marc Speziale, based in the Languedoc wine region, said the first 5,000 bottles sold out rapidly.
"I wanted to prove everyone wrong," Speziale said of his quirky marketing idea.
The wine was named as a cheeky response to oenophiles who say Languedoc wines are substandard when compared with wines from the Bordeaux region. A neighbouring vineyard produces a wine called Fat Bastard.
Walter Valgalier, a spokesman for the co-op that produces Le Vin de Merde, said the wine hopes to appeal to a new customer base.
"We're facing stiff competition from California, Chile, Argentina," he said. "We must look for new customers, the young for instance, and then grab their attention with the label."
Increasingly, winemakers have had to broaden their approaches as competition grows. In 2001, a report prepared for France's Agriculture Ministry suggested winemakers should focus more on consumers and improve their marketing strategies.
Since then, France's winemakers have created flashy advertising campaigns touting new boxed wines and screwtop bottles — a change industry analysts say have helped stem market losses. In 2007, France's wine industry exported nearly $15 billion US worth of product abroad.
