The Regulatory Council of the Rioja Quality Designation of Origin (DOCa Rioja, for its Spanish acronym) announced last April a package of measures aimed at facing the unprecedented situation of uncertainty that the outbreak of the health crisis in Covid-19 was supplying for wineries, winegrowers and other members of the Denomination's wine sector. Among them, a reevaluation and reorientation of the planned actions in the matter of promotion to debug those that could be unfeasible or uncertain.

From the strategic approach carried out at that time, and from the premise of an optimization of resources, `Te Mereces Un Rioja' was born, a Spanish campaign developed by the Marketing team of the Regulatory Council that has been very successful and has generated 100,000 millions of advertising impacts in order to revive and boost consumption in bars and restaurants. The campaign, in its efforts to reactivate and normalize the hospitality channel and maintaining the spirit of solidarity with which it was presented, currently distributes 10,000 hygiene-sanitary kits from the main hotel federations in the country.

One of the strategic axes for the creation of the 'You Deserve A Rioja' campaign was the articulation of a raffle of 15,000 free visits to almost 70 wineries of the Denomination, a claim that is now joined by the raffle of unique experiences in open air vineyards free and which aims to reactivate traffic to the warehouses and send an unequivocal message of reactivation of the sector. The first visitors have already made themselves seen throughout the region and the winners are already, little by little, enjoying their experiences.

The call from Rioja to this reactivation of the consumption of Rioja wines at home during the confinement, as well as to boost the hospitality sector and tourism in the region in the second phase of the crisis, has had the support of known faces from the cinema and entertainment such as Ana Milán, Maxi Iglesias, Javier Gutiérrez, Ruth Lorenzo, Javier Veiga, Marta Hazas, Nuria Roca and Raquel Sánchez Silva who have organized wine - they meet their followers live through their Instagram accounts toasting with and for 'You Deserve a Rioja'.

Overcome those first weeks of tremendous uncertainty, and in view of the upward behavior of export markets and the success of the national campaign, last Friday the Plenary agreed an additional investment of 1,600,000 euros to reach a total of € 7,5 million in promotion. With this new impetus, the aim is to stimulate sales and contribute to the market recovery taking place as quickly as possible. For this reason, a special reinforcement of the national promotion plan will be carried out, given that it deals with the immediate market and accounts for almost two thirds of the sale, as well as an additional reinforcement to other international markets such as the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States.

In the United Kingdom, the first international destination in terms of value and volume of Rioja, where both the frequency and total consumption of wine have increased considerably in recent months, important agreements have been developed to make the most premium commercial offer of the Denomination in Already consolidated ecommerce platforms such as Virgin Wines, Majestic, Wine Society or Laithwaites, as well as reinforcement in communication and actions with the press.

In order to increase the brand awareness in the German country, in Germany, influencers, hoteliers and sommeliers communicate the benefits of Rioja through tastings and pairings carried out both at the point of sale and on their own channels and social networks, as well as tastings with lifestyle press. In addition, the Denomination has reached a special agreement with Hawesko, an online wine sales platform with a portfolio of 500,000 customers, for the promotion of Rioja for the month of August and the pre-Christmas period.

The United States and Canada occupy a prominent position in Rioja sales and the operations carried out in the last year have been positive for the Denomination in these markets with the development of professional agreements with distribution chains, hotels and e-commerce platforms, which include to major operators such as Wine.com and Seven-Fifty.com.