Women call shots in fashioning Truvee, a wine aimed at females

Treasury Wine Estates cobbled together a team of ­female staff to fashion a new wine aimed directly at women.

Members of the Truvee collective, from left: Kristy Keyte, Kayla Saunders, Michael Clarke and Katie Eshuys.

When Treasury Wine Estates chief executive Michael Clarke wanted to fashion a wine directly aimed at women, rather than hand the project to the usual suspects within the winemaker, he cobbled together a team of ­female staff and handed them ownership of the project.

The result is a new wine that will be launched globally, Truvee, derived from the French word “to find”, and it will fit neatly within the growing Treasury portfolio with a rose and pinot gris targeting women drinkers aged 30 to 40 years.

Other wine lovers will be welcome to pick up a bottle of Truvee but in an industry where marketing and demographics is playing an increasingly important role, Treasury wants to make sure its female drinkers of a certain age are covered.

Until now available only in the US, where it was part of the ­Diageo wine business acquired by Treasury last year for $754 million, Truvee has started to appear in local bottle shops and serves an added purpose of building up the winemaker’s diversity ­credentials.

“We saw an outstanding ­oppor­tunity to offer Truvee to markets around the world, and have taken quite a unique ­approach to the redevelopment of the brand,’’ Mr Clarke said.

“We’ve invited a team of women from all parts of the business, including finance, supply, marketing and sales, to steer all decisions about the brand and its global launch.

“This is a group that would not normally get to work together on a project in this way. The result is a brand designed by women for women and ­embracing how multi­faceted women are.”

He said the brand had suffered under its former owners but he saw future in the wine.

“We acquired the label in the Diageo acquisition and it was one of their many propositions that wasn’t doing very well.

“We felt we could actually take the label and build it into a brand targeting female consumers.’’

Kristy Keyte, Treasury Wine Estates’ global business director, marketing, and a member of the “Truvee collective”, said the brand’s positioning reflected the complexity of women.

She said it was grounded in a philosophy of inspiring women to unlock their hidden depth and potential.

“Our consumer insight was that on the surface you rarely see what actually defines or inspires women. Our goal was to create wines as complex as the women who drink them,” Ms Keyte said.

“It is a really unique way to create a brand that we have never done before at TWE, so it is quite an exciting time for us.”

Female teams in North America and Europe will also take ownership of the brand as its rollout goes global.