According to Excelsior Wines, U.S. importer for Frontera and parent company Concha y Toro, Chile’s best-selling wine brand hopes to appeal to a new generation of wine lovers – 21-34 year olds – with Frontera After Dark.
Starting this fall, consumers will notice striking changes to Frontera’s 750-ml. range, including the addition of an “After Dark” tagline, a nod to the younger generation, for whom “The day starts to come alive at night!” Frontera Night Harvest Blends are a fresh winemaking concept: grapes harvested in the cool of the night for bolder flavors and aromas.
Labels for Frontera After Dark 750-ml. bottles – the favored format of millennial wine lovers -- will now sport a dramatic black background, overlaid by a depiction of the Andes Mountains, traced in pale gold, making Frontera one of the first “dark-label” entries in the $4-7 value-wine sector. Dark labels represent a powerful new trend in the U.S. marketplace and dominate the landscape where millennials are concerned, as registered by an impressive +29% volume increase over traditional cream/white labels in 2015.
Joining Frontera’s After Dark 750-ml. line-up are two new blends: Moonlight White and After Midnight Red. Moonlight White is a semi-sweet style, faintly effervescent, fresh, light Moscato-based blend. After Midnight Red is a Cabernet Sauvignon-Syrah blend, rounded out with a touch of Merlot.
Frontera After Dark 750-ml. white varietals, including the new Moonlight White as well as the Pinot Noir will be sealed with a twist-off closure. Frontera “After Dark” 750-ml. reds, including After Midnight Red, will remain under cork. Each Frontera After Dark label will retail for approx. $6.
Support for Frontera After Dark will be provided via a 360 marketing campaign. At the “pre-tail” level, this includes geo-targeted social media ads and partnerships with the Ibotta in-store shopping app and online delivery services such as Drizly. Retail promotions include in-store radio ads, floor talkers and high-value discount bottle neckers, logoed wine racks, case cards, case sleeves and cold-box trays. A digital ad campaign, targeted at social media influencers and featuring wine cocktails and sangria recipes is also underway.
Frontera’s classic 1.5-liter varietal range is also poised for a makeover, albeit of a more subtle nature. Launched in the U.S. in the early 1980s, Frontera’s 1.5-liter format was an instant hit with baby boomers and today enjoys a multi-generational appeal. Starting in this summer, labels for Frontera’s 1.5-liter wines will feature an enhanced image of the Andes Mountains juxtaposed against a cream background, to evoke a heightened sense of place and origin. A “ticket-stub” addition, with the varietal name positioned above a “Vineyards Protected by Nature” tagline, conveys a sense of journey, while referencing Chile’s pristine natural environment, which offers exceptional conditions in which to nurture fine quality wines.
