Naked Wines seeks to boost Argentine winemakers

Naked Wines is teaming up with Wines of Argentina (WofA) for a customer promotion.

The online retailer’s elite “Archangel” customers will be invited to pick their favourite Argentine wines from a selection of small producers who have never done business in the UK at WofA’s UK Annual Tasting on 14 September.

The initiative is designed to offer an exciting selection of completely unknown wines to try as well as provide an opportunity for the producers to get their brand known in what is currently a very accommodating market for Argentine wines.

Francesca Krajewski, marketing manager at Naked Wines, said: “We’ve seen a 27% growth in Argentine wine sales over the past twelve months, with new lines of Torrontès and Malbec going down a storm.”

The producer deemed the favourite of the tasters will be given a guaranteed order of £50,000.

The whole process is set to take a few hours at the most – compared to a process that can take months when conducted remotely.

The Archangels, Naked’s most interactive and vocal customers, number about 200 and are regarded as key assets of the company.

This is not the first time consumers have been used to pick wines for the company; the Archangels are invited to trade events and tastings, and offer their feedback about which wines and producers they liked, and which ones they would like to see sold through Naked.

For the last two years they have been invited to the London International Wine Fair, armed with a list of potential producers and asked to taste extensively before feeding back with their thoughts and preferences at the end of the event.

The tasting will be the first foray into the UK for the near-100 producers involved.

The event will coincide with WofA’s current rebranding activity, part of which involved World Malbec Day, as well as the partnership between Chapel Down in Kent and Gaucho vineyards to create the first ever English-Argentine Malbec.

If the event is a success, Naked plans to continue with the template and introduce new, previously unknown producers to the UK market.

The WofA event hopes to produce similar results to last year’s Naked Wines collaboration with members of MOVI, a group of independent Chilean winemakers.