Foster’s picks WFCA for wine brands push

Beringer%20wineWFCA, the Tunbridge Wells-based full-service agency, has won the European business for Foster’s-owned Beringer and Castello Di Gabbiano wine brands without a pitch.

The group, best known for its Foster’s lager brand, has briefed the agency to create and launch a pan-European campaign for American premium wine brand Beringer. It will have the strapline: “Pioneering great taste since 1876”.

The campaign will run in weekend supplements and broadsheets later this month. It will position Beringer as having an “anything is possible” pioneering attitude, first demonstrated by the Beringer brothers, who emigrated to the Napa Valley in California from Germany.

The campaign also aims to change people’s perceptions of the quality of Californian wines.

WFCA will also create a campaign for the 800-year- old Tuscan wine brand Gabbiano. The push, which will break next year, aims to raise awareness and increase value in the Italian wine category.

Foster’s Group sold off its European lager business last year to Scottish & Newcastle for £309m. Previously S&N had licensed the brand in the region.

The move was prompted by Foster’s Group’s decision to reposition itself as a leading wine producer.

It holds the number two spot behind Constellation after acquiring Beringer in 2000 for £915m and Australia’s largest wine group Southcorp last year for £1.34bn. It also owns the Australian wine brands Wolf Blass, Penfolds, Rosemount and Lindemans.