Is it possible to break the stereotypes in such a traditional business as wine-making? The experts at San Marzano suggest that it is
When it comes to narrating a very traditional activity like the grape harvest in a very traditional business like wine-making, it can be difficult to find a new way of telling the story, making it attractive, especially in the contemporary world, where communication has to impress immediately, even if it has to hold the attention only for a few fleeting seconds.
San Marzano, a winery based in a small village of Puglia region, the heel of Italy’s boot, was established in 1962 in the Primitivo di Manduria DOP area, and has long accepted the challenge of trying to engage its audience with creativity, using a very personal ‘artsy’ and experimental style that infuses its official communications with a unique personality that goes beyond stereotypes, terroir and borders.
San Marzano’s latest work, created for the winery’s Instagram page @sanmarzanowines, is a tale of the harvest, a century-old, almost sacred practice that is a crucial moment in the production cycle of a winery, after a whole year of work in the fields, of the efforts of all the farmers.
Elements
The creative team of San Marzano worked on the concept of giving life to the work itself, merging the worker, the farmer, with the grapes themselves, which are personified, being the main characters of this cyclical rite, protagonists of the wine-making process.
The act of harvesting itself is unpersonified, while the grapes, on the other hand, appear like living creatures that have a crucial role in the winery’s life – in fact the most important part.
The scenes are certainly unusual: while the typical backgrounds of the harvest, such as the vineyards, the winery’s drying loft, are to the forefront, they are furnished with urban elements of the past, creating an overall odd scenario that gives the spotlight, once again, to the bunches of grapes, like a scene of a play of the theatre of the absurd.
What San Marzano aims to do is, while evoking tradition as starting point, to embrace new styles, new identities, positioning itself as more than just a winery. San Marzano strives to be a lifestyle brand that embodies another way of seeing wine, not as a distant and incomprehensible product, but as it should be seen, a symbol of culture, joy, and celebration.
