The French take a tip from New World branding
By: Anthony Manifold

Coming soon to US restaurants, wine bars and bottleshops: Chamarré wines, a Gallic answer to competitive imports such as Australia’s hugely successful Yellow Tail, which sold a record 7.2 million cases in the US last year. Chamarré is slated for release by the end of 2006, backed up with a US $10 million promotional splurge.

It abandons the traditional French terroir-based descriptor on the label and shows instead the brand name in bold type followed by the grape varietal. This is the formula used on most domestic and imported wines but not usually by French wines. There’s a critter on the label too. It’s the eponymous Chamarré or, as it’s also known, the yellow-tailed skipper butterfly. The portfolio is wide-ranging, from merlot and cabernet sauvignon to blends of cabernet/grenache and shiraz/merlot. And there’s a chardonnay that will be cellared for six months in oak to achieve the fatter, more buttery texture known to please the palates of typical US wine drinkers. Most of the wines are priced in the US $9-10 (A$12-13) range, which is the most fiercely contested price point.

Chamarré’s master winemaker, Renaud Rosari, will be producing the wine with seven of France’s largest cooperatives, which are also shareholders in the business venture. “It’s time to get rid of the stuffy pretentiousness that surrounds French wine,” Rosari says. “Chamarré is lively, uncomplicated and approachable and means consistently high quality, with the easy-drinking style customers are looking for.” Will the butterfly catch the wallaby or suffer the fate of other quirkily named French brands such as Fat Bastard, Le Freak and Red Bicyclette? With the European Commission seeking to cut back on the number of vineyards in France and slash subsidies, French winemakers certainly hope it is the former.