Banfi Vineyards has put up Spanish-language billboards for Riunite wine around the DFW area, porque hay muchos mas hispanios beber vino.
As recently reported by Advertising Age, wine consumption among Hispanics has surged in the past five years, growing at three times the rate of the general market. About half of the nation's new wine drinkers are Hispanic.
Banfi Vineyards is apparently closed for the prolonged Thanksgiving holiday today, but its latest marketing strategy's in keeping with a long history of courting wine neophytes. The company's been promoting the lifestyle associated with its screw-top brand - rather than the quality of the wine in its bottles - since it
imported the first 100 cases of Riunite in 1967.
Riunite is "the Walkman of wine," New York Magazine sniffed in 1982, when one out of every four imported wine bottles sold in the U.S. bore the Riunite label.
Marvin Shanken, a proto-blogger who edited a wine newsletter, then told the magazine: "In the seventies, when most California vinters were off showing lush vineyards and pouring wine into glasses, Riunite...said, in effect, here's a wine for mealtimes or after."
That's a pretty good summation of the Hispanic-oriented campaign Beringer Vineyards rolled out this fall. According to Advertising Age, the winery has released Spanish-language wine wheels, showing which wines to pair with enchiladas and mole, and a TV ad depicting happy Beringer drinkers at a barbecue.
"Often on wine and foodie websites, they pair a wine with a pungent Brie cheese. Everyday Latino consumers don't spend time in the French cheese section," Elizabeth Barrutia, CEO of the ad agency responsible for the campaign, was quoted as saying.
