New wine range to be used as dating tool

A French wine range has been launched that promises to bring together single wine lovers through a parallel online dating site.

The concept, known as Soif du Coeur (Thirsty Heart), involves buying a €3 bottle of wine which contains a code printed on the back label – revealed once the bottle has been emptied.

Prospective daters then enter their code and details on the Soif du Coeur website, which matches them up with a potential partner and fellow wine lover.

The project was launched by two Bordeaux-based wine wholesalers, Omnivins and Chateau en Bordeaux to promote a new Vins de Pays de l’Atlantique range.

350,000 bottles of Soif du Coeur wine have been sold to participating supermarkets (pink for girls, blue for boys) since its soft launch on 21 March. The website will be officially lanuched at Vinexpo 2007 in June.

‘We have had 90 visitors to the site per day since the launch, 10 people registering per day and already three meetings per day,’ director Pierre Jean Larraqué told decanter.com, ‘But once we’ve put couples in contact, it’s up to them.’

‘This is the first year that the vin de pays d’Atlantique label has been used, so we are experimenting with the best routes to market, and this has proved to be both novel and popular,’ said Larraqué. ‘There are eight million people living alone in France. The idea is to promote meetings using a convivial product like wine.’

Three different Soif du Coeur wines are available, a Merlot/Cabernet red, a Cabernet/Merlot rosé and a Sauvignon-Sémillon white. Launches in America, Canada and Russia are currently being negotiated, and Larraqué hopes to make contact with UK buyers during Vinexpo.

Written by Jane Anson