Pantone uses its colour chart to promote Bordeaux rosés

ell-known for its numerical colour system, the American company Pantone, based in Carlstadt, New Jersey, has just signed a co-operation agreement with the Bordeaux wine company Famille Bouey, based in Ambarès, Gironde. Called ‘Colors’, the range of rosé wines involved in this unprecedented partnership, comes in two numbers: Colors 721, single varietal Merlot AOP Bordeaux, and Colors 719, single varietal Grenache IGP Méditerranée. Presented in hallmark Provencal bottles and colours, the wines aim to be innovative both in form and content.

Based on the “observation [that] Bordeaux rosé is having trouble carving out a place for itself with distributors”, the family-run business stresses that in order to “create the consistent taste cues that all non-expert wine consumers are looking for, a flavour had to be associated with a colour. So we had to design a specific colour range”, explains Jacques Bouey, the firm’s president, in a press release. After asking Pantone to choose colours from its colour chart, Bouey drafted its supply specifications accordingly.

Strategically, “rosé is above all a wine [bought on the basis of] colour, style or the eye-catching allure of the bottle and the name of the brand”, adds Stephane Lefevbre, managing director of the Bouey negociant business.