(Editorial written by Guillaume Jourdan) It’s now official: Jean-Guillaume Prats is going to LVMH, the World Leader in Luxury. Moët Hennessy-Louis Vuitton possesses a unique portfolio of over 60 prestigious brands including wines and spirits. Jean-Guillaume Prats is leaving his position of General Director of Château Cos D’Estournel, a Second Growth (1855 Classification) Saint-Estèphe Grand Cru Classé. Cos d’Estournel’s current owner is Michel Reybier of Domaines Reybier and the estate manages 160 acres of vines (Domaines Reybier also owns Château Marbuzet in Saint-Estèphe and Hetszolo, a well-known estate in Tokaj, Hungary).The current production is around 200,000 bottles for the first label and 130,000 bottles for the second label, Pagodes de Cos. Additionally, as of 2003, Cos added a third label, Goulée, which is a Medoc AOC. Here is the link to the information published today in French in Terre de vins This new position is a brilliant opportunity for Jean Guillaume Prats. ‘Estates & Wines’, the Moët Hennessy Wine Division, is a unique collection of prestigious wine properties present on four continents. Diversity, discovery, excellence and pleasure are the four principles behind just such a collection of wines. Cheval des Andes, Terrazas de los Andes, Numanthia, Cloudy Bay, Cape Mentelle, Newton Vineyard and Chandon together make up Estates & Wines, the wine division of Moët Hennessy and part of the LVMH group. The new position seems “evident” for this born luxury brand marketer. At a recent dinner, we talked about luxury in the wine business, about image, brand value and marketing/communication strategy. I shared with him some experiences we had at VitaBella Luxury Wine, more particularly what we did effectively to take some prestigious wine estates to the next level. I have to say that Jean Guillaume Prats is one of the rare person I met in Bordeaux who is fully receptive to these messages and who understands that communication and marketing are now key for luxury wines. We talked about an editorial (Raising the price of a wine is not enough to make it a “luxury wine”) posted some time ago on www.vitabella.fr and we asked ourselves why still so few people were understanding these major changes. After Pierre Lurton, an also famous name in Bordeaux, Jean Guillaume Prats joins the world leader in luxury with some of the greatest wines and the most skillful marketing/communication teams in the world. Olivier Krug, an other prestigious name in the wine business, has done the same at the time when LVMH acquired Champagne Krug. In the world of luxury brands, great names from the wine industry join LVMH forces to make the group even stronger in the future.
Jean-Guillaume Prats becomes CEO of Estates & Wines at Luxury Group LVMH
