Berkmann Wine Cellars
Tour of Britain

Looking at the machinations of the UK wine trade, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Londoners are the only people that drink wine. The trade is excessively London-centric, and the hordes of retailers who are based elsewhere in the country are forced to regularly journey to London if they want to keep up with what’s new in the trade. It’s a source of constant frustration for a vast swathe of the industry – so Berkmann Wine Cellars decided that it was high time to do something about it.

Berkmann prides itself as a multi-faceted company with six regional branches dotted across the country. In order to ensure that buyers from all corners of the UK are able to experience the company’s rich portfolio, they devised the Berkmann Tour of Britain: 41 of the company’s producers travelled around the country stopping in five cities to host a tasting and lunch. The company prides itself on providing a personalised and localised service, and the tour made it clear that this objective is being achieved.

The event was marketed with cycling-inspired imagery and, intriguingly, the company opted to conduct the application process online. It was also advertised extensively to ensure that attendance was high.

The judges were enormously impressed by a campaign where the agent put the interests of its customers first, event though this didn’t exactly make life easy. “The Tour was a good investment and a really creative idea,” commented one judge, while another explained, “It’s a fantastic service, they’re saying to the customers ‘we’re working hard to make it as easy as possible for you’, which must have been music to the ears of all of the regional retailers who are fed up with the train ride to London.”

Click to see the award presentation at this years ceremony