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Exclusive: what to expect from Vivino’s first bricks-and-mortar store in Singapore
Scheduled for mid-September, the flagship store will hold 100 bottles of wines rated 4-stars and above on the Vivino app. Nimmi Malhotra gets the lowdown from the company’s VP for global commerce.
Vivino, the popular wine-scanning app and website, is set to launch its first flagship store in Singapore. Located on the first floor of Raffles City, the store opens its doors on 19 September.
The Vivino retail space is being launched in collaboration with Wine Portal, a wine import and distribution company headquartered in Singapore. The group is behind Domaine and Castle in Hong Kong and China, wine bars Park 90 and Tenuta in Singapore and e-commerce wine platform Grand Cru, Wine Concierge.
Morten Fillipsen, vice president of global commerce at Vivino, who is based in Singapore, told Malhotra: “It’s a license agreement between us and them. It’s their shop, and they have a license to use our brand, and we support them from our side with insight into the sourcing.”
The 2,000-square-foot store will house 100 wines rated 4.0 and above by Vivino’s 65 million-strong community. Select limited-edition wines, including global bestsellers brought into Singapore for the first time, will also feature on the shelves.
Fillipsen gave db a sneak preview of what the company has in store for the retail space. “We’re bringing in some of Vivino’s global best sellers, like the Astrale Special Edition, the Hans Greyl Sauvignon Blanc and the Ponte Lungo Curioso — all highly rated wines at competitive prices.”
Walking into the store, Fillipsen said, will be “different from just walking into an old-school wine shop”. The space includes an oval bar where customers can sample wines on sale starting at S$8 per glass and enjoy tapas starting from S$12.
Fillipsen has worked closely with Wine Portal to curate the wines based on Vivino data on what Singapore users are scanning and rating highly.
The in-store experience will include a ‘Vivino recommends’ kiosk and data visualisation on the walls for recommendations like ‘top 10 styles for parties’, or ‘top 10 styles for dinners’. Fillipsen described the approach as a “very different way of thinking of wine versus segmenting by Italian and French.”
Singapore: the first of many more to come
“What I like about Singapore is the same thing I like about Hong Kong — these are two markets where you don’t have to shout very loud for everyone to hear you,” said Fillipsen.
The Vivino wine store is Fillipsen’s and Wine Portal’s brainchild and an opportunity to access a new market segment. “We’ve done quite well at catering to the wine-curious segment through the e-commerce platform. But there’s still a very large group of people who love wine, but buying wine is an afterthought — people who like Vivino but don’t buy from us. We hope to capture some of that market,” he explained.
The Singapore Vivino store will host wine events, including wine tastings and workshops. In addition, it gives the 250,000-strong Singapore Vivino users a place to meet.
“The local Vivino users are very active and meet each other offline all the time. It’s an opportunity for us to engage with them,” Fillipsen stated. This community engagement starts on 18 September with a special store preview dedicated to Vivino users.
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