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Campo Viejo's Fiesta de Color launched yesterday (14 June) and invites guests to experience live music, street food and wine in central London.
Experiences include a 'Blend Your Own Wine' workshop, where attendees can create their own personalised wine suited to their individual tastes, and a 'Dare to Pair' session, which aims to challenge guests' preconceptions of food and wine pairings. Event went down to the Millennium Green in Waterloo get a glimpse of the action, and chatted to Campo Viejo's senior brand manager Carlotta Colkin and Pernod Ricard's senior brand manager Steve Hughes about the objectives behind the event.
What does Fiesta de Color mean for the Campo Viejo brand?
Colkin: "Campo Viejo is all about bringing 'Spanish-ness' to life, and putting that 'Spanish-ness' into people's everyday lives. Spanish culture is a bit more relaxed, a bit more chilled, and that's the vibe we want to bring out at Fiesta de Color. It allows us to create the space, vibrancy and colour that Spanish culture has, and get people to come together and be convivial - whether it's meeting up after work, or meeting up on weekends. It's giving people that space to come and be a bit more Spanish."
Hughes: "This year, we've got Waterloo Millennium Green to play with, and we decided we wanted to make different areas for different experiences. So there's something for people who want to blend their own wine, and the 'Dare to Pair', which is centred on matching foods with wines, and there's a bar for people who just want to come down and hang out. It's a huge structure, and it caters for everything we wanted it to for our consumers."
Why did you include the 'Blend Your Own Wine' workshop as part of the activation?
Carlotta Colkin: "What we know about our consumers is that they love Campo Viejo, and they love wine, but wine can be one of those terrifying subjects. Particularly when you go into a bar, or when you're offered a glass of wine you don't know, so we wanted to break down those barriers and explain to people what it is that makes our Reserva really special, but also give insight into the wine-making process without being too heavy with the wine knowledge. So we take people through the process, and introduce them to the three wines we use in our Reserva, show the tastes they add to the Reserva, and then add an element of experimentation.
"People love to try things and do things, and that personalisation aspect allows them to make their own blend based on how spicy they want it, how fruity they want it, whether they'd like a really full bodied wine - whatever makes their tastebuds sing."
Do you think the personalisation aspect is important to events?
Colkin: "It's really important. Everyone's different, and everybody wants to get that personal experience for themselves. So allowing people to do something and experience their own tastebuds always makes that experience a bit deeper and more meaningful. And that's we aim to do - give people that knowledge so that they can go away and be a bit more excited about wine and talk about it to their friends."
Hughes: "We try to make it our own - that's the personalisation aspect that sets Campo Viejo aside from other brands. It's colourful and its the individual's interpretation of the wine. That's what the blending exercise really helps to achieve - getting people to blend the wine that appeals to them, and create a personalised bottle that they can take away with them. They feel like they've contributed to something amazing."
More: Also this week, Event spoke to Tilda's head of innovation and communications, Camilla Sheeley, after the rice brand staged its first major experience earlier in June.
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