Comments on: XOXO

By: MoreCoffeePlease

MoreCoffeePlease — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 01:37:34 +0000

“Lifestyle” brand? Ew.

Well, it apparently appeals to women who are five years old, anyway… I’m surprised such an icky wine sells so well. Doesn’t say much about their other brands if that’s in the top 10, does it?

By: lawgeek

lawgeek — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 01:29:04 +0000

From a recent Globe, this is rather funny in light of our guesses as to who the wine was marketed to, as opposed to who actually was attracted by the label:

——————————-

What Terry Sauriol and Andrew Peller Ltd. [ADW.A-T] also noticed after a little research is that the people buying [critter wines] were predominantly women…

Peller did its homework. There seemed to be a clear market for casual, unpretentious wines among women that no other major winery in Canada was reaching out to….

In August of 2006, Peller made the first overtures with a lifestyle brand called XOXO. With the new category came a new name. The company ditched Peller and created Roundpetal Wines for XOXO, to distance the brand from its burgeoning premium business.

XOXO is on its way to becoming a $12-million-a-year brand by the end of 2008 — and double that in five years, Mr. Sauriol predicted. With 47-per-cent sales growth in the past year in Ontario alone, it already represents about 2 per cent of the company’s wholesale revenues, and is among the winery’s top 10 brands.

“It brings in a whole new demographic for us,” Mr. Sauriol said. “It brings in the women and we want them. Women are driving the business where a lot of the growth is occurring in the category.”

By: gigantichound

gigantichound — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 16:09:26 +0000

Who knows where it came from?

Algérie française!

By: MoreCoffeePlease

MoreCoffeePlease — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 02:57:06 +0000

The back of the bottle said something like: Rosepetal wines, Grimsby, Ontario; Truro, NS, Kelowna, BC. Who knows where it came from?

It was appealing to five-year-olds, anyway. We’ll try to teach her about fonts…

By: lawgeek

lawgeek — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 16:44:10 +0000

It looks like Andres Wines trying to come up with a “cool” brand. I suppose Baby Duck just doesn’t cut it anymore. Funny, though, it’s impossible to determine the provenance of the grapes or the winemaker from the website. (Rosepetal being nothing more than a brand as far as a I can see.)

By: lawgeek

lawgeek — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 04:25:44 +0000

I’ve seen it here there and everywhere and it just never looked very promising… good to have confirmation of my gut instinct, sorry it had to be on your dime.

By: MoreCoffeePlease

MoreCoffeePlease — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 01:31:27 +0000

I know, I know. But M was so SURE it would be yummy Love Potion! (“Well,” we said, “Maybe if you drink a LOT of it…”) It had XOXO on it! And chocolates!!

edit – it occurs to me that Goats Do Roam is a pleasing exception to this rule

By: gigantichound

gigantichound — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 01:17:22 +0000

It is my invariable experience that wines with cutesy labels are bad. I don’t want this to be true, but it pretty much always is. The most recent case was a bottle of California port marketed as ‘Starboard – not the other fortified wine,’ or some such. Wretched.

Harrumph.