Wine & Spirits – Tahni Candelaria https://www.tahnicandelaria.com Tahni Candelaria: cultural anthropologist and artist. Tue, 20 Oct 2026 08:34:44 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.7.20 https://www.tahnicandelaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/cropped-favicon-512-32x32.png Wine & Spirits – Tahni Candelaria https://www.tahnicandelaria.com 32 32 Modernizing a Prestige Champagne Brand https://www.tahnicandelaria.com/modernizing-a-prestige-champagne-brand/ https://www.tahnicandelaria.com/modernizing-a-prestige-champagne-brand/#respond Tue, 20 Oct 2026 08:34:43 +0000 https://www.tahnicandelaria.com/?p=1727

Overview

One of the client’s prestige champagne brands is widely admired. The brand team, however, wanted it to be widely desired, and wanted to know what it would take to make a heritage brand feel modern. I ran a week-long study with affluent consumers who love premium spirits, then brought an anthropological point of view into a strategic workshop with the brand team. That work shaped the brand’s new strategy.

The question

How does a heritage brand become modern? The usual routes to “modern” hadn’t gotten the team where they wanted to go. How does one build desire amongst affluent consumers who appreciate premium spirits?

The approach

I started by reframing the question. Modern isn’t a color palette, a soundtrack or a celebrity partner, though those can be expressions of it. Modern is a way of inhabiting life today, shaped by the conditions we live in. So instead of asking how a brand can look modern, I asked what it takes to belong in modern life.

Then I went to my affluent consumer panel. The week-long study, with affluent consumers who appreciate premium spirits, explored:

  • What makes something or someone iconic
  • When and how people celebrate, including the unexpected moments they mark
  • An understanding of the brand’s character
  • Rites of passage, and how thinking about them anthropologically can open up the moments a brand can belong to

Outcome

I turned the study into early insights and provocations, and they became a core part of the strategic workshop with the brand team. The anthropological thinking gave the discussion a fresh lens on modernity, on celebration and on what makes a brand an icon, and gave the team a range of strategic directions to react to and sharpen. Out of the workshop came a new strategy for the brand, shaped by my research and anthropological thinking.

]]> https://www.tahnicandelaria.com/modernizing-a-prestige-champagne-brand/feed/ 0 Premium Wine Brand Research https://www.tahnicandelaria.com/premium-wine-brand-research/ Wed, 19 Oct 2022 14:00:09 +0000 https://www.tahnicandelaria.com/?p=1717

Overview

A premium Napa Valley wine brand wanted to understand how luxury works in wine, how its brand is perceived, and who its audience really is. I co-led the qualitative research that gave Team One and the client a foundation for brand positioning, using anthropology to look at luxury wine in a new way.

The question

What makes a wine feel luxurious? How do affluent wine drinkers think about luxury, what role does wine play in their lives, and where does a premium brand sit in their minds?

The approach

I ran a three-part online study with luxury wine drinkers, combining at-home tasks, mobile ethnography of shopping for luxury wine in the moment, and a series of discussion groups on luxury and the brand.

Outcome

The final report gave the team a clear, human view of luxury in wine and of the brand’s place in it, with implications for brand positioning and audience development. It became the qualitative foundation for the next steps: positioning, target audience research and communications planning.

In the report, I:

  • Built a framework for how luxury works in wine, covering everything from placement and packaging to ritual, myth and rarity.
  • Uncovered the human tensions luxury wine resolves, from the pressure of choosing well to the question of what a bottle says about you.
  • Created 6 segments of luxury wine drinkers, defining their values, their lives and how they define luxury.
  • Analyzed the brand’s symbols and mythology to understand what makes it feel sacred and what holds it back.
  • Advised on opportunity segments for the brand and supported the strategy around its target audience.
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