Case Studies

Furleigh Estate

We worked with Rebecca and Ian to identify and structure the right content, to respond with good quality information for wine trade and press.

This also gave them detailed information ready to hand, to make available and accessible from their new website.

Introduction

Furleigh Estate is a family-owned vineyard and winery near Bridport in beautiful, sunny Dorset, not far from the Jurassic Coast.

Furleigh Estate Blanc de Noirs

A BUSY FAMILY BUSINESS

Rebecca Hansford and Ian Edwards Markham are proud of having their own, purpose-built winery, with Ian as winemaker and using only their own grapes.  They have successfully built up their family business and reputation since planting the first of their 16ha of vines in 2005.  They produce top quality English sparkling and still wines.

Furleigh sell online via their website and also have a wine club.  They have a cellar door shop, opening regularly for visitors as well offering winery tours and many other events and activities at their lovely vineyard.  They have cultivated great relationships with other local businesses, as well actively supporting local art and events.  It is a family business, supported by a small team. Consequently, everyone is very busy, particularly Rebecca who is responsible for the day to day running, marketing and communication of Furleigh Estate.

Working with Furleigh Estate to get their wine and profile information relevant and available was all about offering an interactive and supportive process, to arrive at what we knew would achieve the best end result for them.

Challenge

Furleigh have built up a strong reputation for producing high quality wines and gained many awards.  They have increased their reach to selling nationally, as well as locally, working with a trade distributor.  All this has brought with it increasing demands on Rebecca’s time to provide support for wine sales in the market, with more detailed information about the Estate and its wines.

SUPPORTING FURLEIGH’S WINES IN THE UK MARKET

English producers are well placed to build good local relationships and sales in their region, both via retailing and tourism.  However, nationally they are competing for attention amongst a vast range of wine imported into the UK.

To support their wines in the wider market it would require clear communication of their own, unique story, who they are and what they do, to ensure they can stand out from the crowd.

They also needed to be able to supply this easily, in a simple, coherent format, reflecting their high-quality level of brand presentation.  A format that could be easily edited and updated for new wines and vintages.

WHICH INFORMATION IS USEFUL AND RELEVANT?

Furleigh needed our help to identify the information that would be relevant and useful for trade and press.  This would fulfil different requirements to that aimed at selling direct to consumers.

This detailed information is essential for distributors, independent retailers and sommeliers to sell the wines on Furleigh’s behalf, as well meeting the needs of wine journalists and communicators.

Approach

We undertook an in depth look at everything Furleigh currently made available to customers and any online coverage.  This initial stage would allow us to understand what elements were being communicated and what might be insufficient in terms clarity and detail for trade and press.

INTERACTIVE PROCESS

We then guided them through an interactive process to identify the unique, distinctive information about Furleigh and their wines.  This helps to uncover a greater level of detail and promote a better understanding of which aspects should be highlighted as recognisable benchmarks and those aspects clearly distinct to Furleigh.

STRUCTURE

The Producer Toolkit framework helps provide a logical structure to work through, to ensure information is captured consistently, covering all the relevant aspects.  This formed the basis from which it could be tailored specifically to Furleigh as an English wine producer.

A MARKETING SOLUTION TAILORED TO SMALL PRODUCERS

The objective is to provide Furleigh as a small producer, with a viable marketing solution to communicate their information, which recognised constraints on time and resources for a family run business.

We consolidated all the right components for them in a simple, final format, which also gave them a guiding ‘template’ for their content to manage and edit themselves in the future.

Results

Our framework set Furleigh up with the tools they needed to support their wines in the market:

  • Consolidation of all the relevant and useful information for their profile and individual wines
  • A clear structure to follow, to know they had provided relevant information and could use this for new wines and vintages


FURELIGH’S PRODUCER PROFILE

The producer profile we created is a detailed overview of them, as a producer.  It provides a clearly defined reference document for all the information on Furleigh themselves, as well as supporting content to their individual wine (tech) information sheets.

FURLEIGH’S WINE (TECH) INFORMATION SHEETS

Our focus for the project was to complete a comprehensive set of information for their sparkling wine range.  Furleigh were then able to use the ‘template’ we created for them as a guide for each of their still wines.

PRACTICAL BENEFITS

When Furleigh decided to commission a new website, they reaped the benefit of having everything ready to hand:

Producer Profile – this gave them extensive, clearly defined, relevant content from which to draw on and adapt to their needs, to help populate their website.

Wine (Tech) Information Sheets – gave them the detailed level of content needed for each wine, for their ‘Press centre’ and ‘Trade’ page, where they could also make these easily accessible and downloadable.

When Furleigh decided to commission a new website, they reaped the practical benefits of having everything ready to hand from the detailed content in their Producer Profile and Wine (Tech) Information sheets.

Furleigh Estate, English Wine Producer, Dorset