{"id":261,"date":"2011-05-26T17:18:52","date_gmt":"2011-05-26T21:18:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/batchat.net\/?p=261"},"modified":"2011-05-26T17:18:52","modified_gmt":"2011-05-26T21:18:52","slug":"the-chocovine-phenomenon-or-what-separates-a-breakout-brand-from-an-also-ran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bevologyinc.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/26\/the-chocovine-phenomenon-or-what-separates-a-breakout-brand-from-an-also-ran\/","title":{"rendered":"The Chocovine Phenomenon, or What Separates a Breakout Brand from an Also-Ran"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>For those of you unfamiliar with the brand, (and therefore probably snickering), ChocoVine<\/a> is one of those unique new product successes we see so rarely in the industry.\u00a0 Not just a breakout brand, but one that flies counter to what the pundits would tell you will work.\u00a0 In point of fact, ChocoVine was mentioned by every panelist in our wholesaler session at the U.S. Drinks Conference<\/a> last October as an example of an opportunity missed.\u00a0 All had scoffed at the idea initially and were astounded at the brand\u2019s success.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been watching the ChocoVine phenomenon from its early stages and while I can describe what\u2019s been happening, I can\u2019t explain the phenomenon.\u00a0 But I sure would like to be able to.<\/p>\n

ChocoVine is a chocolate cream product but instead of a spirits alcohol base it\u2019s made with red wine \u201cThe taste of dutch chocolate and fine red wine.\u201d\u00a0 So when you first hear the name. the concepts of chocolate and wine seem at odds\u2026a very difficult pairing in the fine wine world. The label and package are often referred to as \u201chokey\u201d or \u201cdownscale\u201d.\u00a0 But that\u2019s where the criticism has to end, because this stuff is flying off the shelves.\u00a0 In its third year on the market the brand is on track to hit a million cases.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s something about the DNA of this brand that\u2019s really resonating with consumers. As an anecdotal example of that, I was in one store where the delivery guy had just placed a case on the check out shelf for a moment, and customers came over and literally grabbed bottles out of the reshipper\u2026they never even made it to the shelf!\u00a0 And just yesterday in a bar in Brooklyn the bartender mentioned the brand, the Southern on premise rep just happened to have the \u201cHoly Trinity of ChocoVine\u201d (Original, Raspberry, Espresso) with him.\u00a0 So what began as an off premise brand, is cracking on premise as well.<\/p>\n

We spoke to Steve Katz of Clever Imports in Florida who is the brains behind the brand.\u00a0 He told us the idea was pretty simple. Instead of putting chocolate into the alcohol, they put the alcohol into the chocolate.\u00a0 And by using wine as the alcohol base, the product can be sold in a much wider set of retail stores than a spirits product.\u00a0 Additionally, the lower tax rate on wines means it can be priced at $10-$12 compared to market leader Bailey\u2019s $19.99 price point and still deliver significant margin.<\/p>\n

As the Brits say, \u201cBrilliant!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For those of you unfamiliar with the brand, (and therefore probably snickering), ChocoVine is one of those unique new product successes we see so rarely in the industry.\u00a0 Not just a breakout brand, but one that flies counter to what the pundits would tell you will work.\u00a0 In point of fact, ChocoVine was mentioned by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7k1BV-4d","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bevologyinc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bevologyinc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bevologyinc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bevologyinc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bevologyinc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bevologyinc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bevologyinc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bevologyinc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bevologyinc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}