Wine brands drink to Wren & Rowe designs

Wren & Rowe is to create more than 30 brand identities for Portuguese wine company Vinko over the next two years – a project likely to be worth in excess of £50 000 to the consultancy – as the client ferments a move into UK, French and German retail multiples.

The second phase of the brief involves designing a corporate identity and website for Vinko and potentially a name change, according to Wren & Rowe managing director Paul Foulkes-Arrellano. This would be the subject of a separate fee, he says.

Vinko wines are currently distributed in the UK to the million members of The Sunday Times Wine Club.

The rebrand aims to raise Vinko’s profile in the UK and other major European markets to the level of recognition it enjoys in the US and Scandinavia, where it is already sold on shelf, says Foulkes-Arrellano.

Wren & Rowe has presented first concepts for the identity of Vinko brand Quinta do Vale de Perdiz, which it is creating from scratch, and this week another brand, Quinta de Chas, was added to its brief.

‘It’s a premium wine product that’s going to be positioned as modern Portuguese – a modern classic to compete with the likes of Penfold,’ says Foulkes-Arrellano.

The schedule for the revamp is still ‘very fluid’, he adds, but the first evidence of the work will be not be unveiled until next year.

Wren & Rowe creative director Michael Rowe is leading the project. The consultancy won the account in August, without a pitch, on the strength of its work for The Sunday Times Wine Club.

Meanwhile, Wren & Rowe is also working with another Portuguese drinks company, Barros Almedia, which is looking to develop a wine division having traditionally been strong in the port sector. The brief is to create three new brands at different price positionings.