Saturday, December 06, 2008

Can A Winery Name Be Arrogant?

Looky here! It's December already. Before the holiday entertaining schedule ramps up to full speed I thought I'd pop up a post.

Working through the mountain of name suggestions for our new wine brand has been very educational. At one point I was a little exasperated with our inability to really 'love' any one suggestion. I expressed this to a colleague and he suggested -

"Why not just call it Bradley Cooper? Everything you've done rests on your name. It's already got some presence."

When I presented that option to the partner it was if I had brought a bad smell into the room.

"That's conceited and arrogant. I don't want to work for Bradley Cooper Wines. This is a partnership!"

The lambasting softened somewhat when I said, "Kim Crawford, Robert Mondavi, Thomas Fogarty and a host of others". It's not a new concept.

So as it stands now, we may select a name that means something to us, and start building the value and the story around the name or we may go for arrogance.

What do you think? Is naming a winery after an individual a 'no-go'? I await your pithy response.

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