Clare Valley family winery Taylors Wines has launched its largest ever media campaign ‘Live Better by Degrees’ this week to help everyday wine drinkers enjoy what’s in the glass a bit more and appreciate wine the way the winemaker intended.

Born from the insight that ‘no Australian drinks warm beer, so why are 82 per cent of us drinking warm wine,’ creative agency Mr Wolf developed an execution that would educate wine drinkers about the dramatic impact that temperature has on the taste of wine, shedding light on an issue facing a majority of Australian wine drinkers.

“Australia has a great wine making climate, but unfortunately it’s not such a great wine drinking climate,” said Mr Wolf managing partner/head of planning Tony Singleton.

“Our warm temperatures are perfect for cultivating vineyards, but as the vast majority of us drink red wines at ‘room temperature,’ most red wine is being drunk far too warm – and anyone who has drunk a warm beer knows that temperature affects flavour.

“This dilemma sparked the idea of creating optimum drinking temperature sensors on bottles of Taylors Wines as we all agreed it was important to educate wine drinkers that they could be missing out on enjoying wine at its very best.”

Through specially commissioned IPSOS research, Taylors discovered that in fact, 8 out of 10 Australians drink their reds at room temperature, meaning that every week, 2.5 million bottles of red wine are inadvertently being drunk in a way that strips them of their character and subtlety.

Now featured on the back label of all Taylors Estate and Promised Land wines is a temperature sensorwhich utilises thermo-chromatic ink technology that changes colour depending on the temperature of the wine, turning green when the white wine is just right to pour, and turning fuchsia for the red wines.

Temperature is a critical element in maximising a wine’s flavour. Experts recommend that most red wines should be served between 12-18˚C, while the average Aussie household, particularly in summer, is at or above 22˚C. Serving a red wine at ‘room temperature’, as most Australians do, makes the wine flat and flabby, robbing it of its subtle flavours and aromas. And while white wine is better enjoyed on the chillier end of the thermometer (between 6-12˚C), bringing down the temperature too low will mask the wine’s unique characteristics.

Taylors Wines chief marketing officer Cameron Crowley said the campaign idea was a clear winner from the start, as it brought attention to an issue that most Australian wine drinkers don’t even realise exists.

“Taylors is passionate about helping consumers get the best experience when they enjoy our wines and this idea gives us a true point of difference while showcasing our heritage of innovation,” Crowley said.

“Once we understood the issue of temperature, we immediately jumped into testing product viability – we wouldn’t accept anything but a 1˚C accuracy range and our label printers were up to the challenge to accomplish this task.

“We’ve received an amazing response from the new sensors from our retail partners and distributors around the world as it gives us a new way to enhance the wine drinking experience for our consumers.”

Taylors Wines will be amplifying the launch of these innovative temperature sensors across all of their Estate and Promised Land wines with their biggest media spend to date.

The campaign elements include an interactive website to educate consumers about the new labels and the different serving temperatures for wine. The campaign will also be heavily amplified with a national digital campaign through social videos, quizzes, XML temperature driven banners, as well as 30-second radio spots across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, and out of home display across executive channels nationally.

Taylors Wines also worked with Mr Wolf to create an animated content piece, designed to tell the story of enjoying wine at the right temperature. The content piece will be amplified digitally through social and pre-roll.

Campaign credits:

–           Client: Taylors Wines

–           Creative development and execution: Mr Wolf

–           PR: Liquid Ideas

–           Packaging design: Denomination (previously known as The Collective)

–           Label printing: Collotype

–           Media: Custom Media