The Radgonske Gorice Winery is trying to expand into global markets. This winery has been making high quality sparkling wines for 170 years.
According to Professor Emerita Ann C. Noble*, the exposure of wine to daylight or artificial lighting results in what is commonly known as light-struck aromas (goût de lumière). For that reason Radgonske Gorice made a decision to turn to the dark side and produce their new sparkling wine Untouched by Light, following a suggestion by Bruketa&Žinić&Grey. Instead of relying on conventional advertising, a unique product has been created to attract the attention of distributors and media globally.
This wine is unique because of its production process. The night vison goggles are used for harvest, bottle rotation and packing. The wine is left to age for two to three years in Gornja Radgona cave in Slovenia, where it is untouched by the outside world, completely lightproof. In the jargon of Radgonske Gorice this is popularly known as the Crafted by Darkness method. Once out of the cave, the wine is protected in a 99% black lightproof bottle, packed in a vacuum-sealed bag blocking any additional light or air contact.
It’s recommended to drink it in the dark as well so the winery is organizing tastings in the cave with blindfolds, and for the B2B presentation to distributors a “darkroom” was staged in the basement of The Savoy Hotel in London.
Untouched by Light gained over 400 free media mentions all over the world including The Washington Post, Bloomberg, Wine Spectator, The Independent, Decanter, Der Spiegel, Forbes and Wine China and The Radgonske Gorice Winery gained new distributors in the USA, China, Japan and Switzerland.
The best things happen in the dark – untouchedbylight.com.
*Noble, Ann C., Sensory study of the effect of fluorescent light on a sparkling wine and its base wine, American Journal of Enology and Viticulture, Vol. 40, No. 4, 1989
Radgonske gorice / Borut Cvetković (CEO), Andreja Novak (Marketing Manager), Klavdija Topolovec Špur (Oenologist)
Bruketa&Žinić&Grey / Tea Silvia Vlahović (Strategic Planning Director), Davor Bruketa (Creative Director), Mirna Ptiček (Art Director), Maša Ivanov (Client Service Director), Jelena Mihelčić (Head of Press Relations), Tomislav Zeljko (Event Manager), Ivor Marok (Event Executive), Vesna Đurašin (Production Manager), Andrea Knapić (Art Director), Vjekoslav Azenić and Ivan Zebić (UX Designers), Ante Kantor and Marko Zabrdac (Account Executives), Ivan Tanić (Strategic Planning Director), Josip Buzov (Junior Strategic Planner), Drago Mlakar (Copywriter), Ivo Payer (Creative Director/Case Film), Anja Pečovnik (Video Production Manager/Case Film), Ivana Momčilović (Art Director/Case Film), Javier Campopiano (CCO Grey Europe/Case Film)
Packaging: Kaligraf / Miho Karolyi, Rotoplast
Photo and Video: Domagoj Kunić, Imhotep