Today I bring you two rather different approaches
to wine marketing spotted in London last weekend. The image on the right is part of the current Bordeaux campaign, which is scattered liberally throughout the weekend glossies, including the back page of the Sunday Times magazine. The CIVB, Bordeaux’s generic body, are amongst the more active advertisers in the wine world, and the latest images are pleasingly witty. My photographs below depict a somewhat different target market: festival-goers at Wireless 2010 in Hyde Park on Friday 2 Jul, where you could enjoy, among many other commodities, free samples of Black Tower. The Pinot Grigio that I tried was harmless enough in a sweet sort of way, although slugging from a plastic beaker in a field wasn’t the most professional tasting circumstance. Buoyed by the booze, a packed main arena then hosted a barnstorming performance by rock songstress P!nk.
As well as being a singer, actress, gymnast, acrobat and motorcyclist, P!nk is – much more importantly – a devoted fan of wine. As such, we connected via the curious magic of Twitter for a miniature tour of two of London's wine hotspots, Terroirs and Gordons, where we ploughed our way dutifully through three funky Loire Chenin Blancs, two newly resurgent Beaujolais and one fine dry Madeira. En route, we discovered she is a keen WSET student with a particular preference for Tuscan reds, and, like our lobster friend above, fine red bordeaux, especially Chateau Pontet-Canet, as recently visited by Jancis during the MW Symposium.
