Enterprise Nation

I’ve just returned from a few days in northern Spain. The hotel where we stayed was designed by Canadian architect Frank Gehry, located in the middle of a winery and a vital reminder of the importance of innovating in your business.

The story of Marques de Riscal

Marques de Riscal is a successful wine business, run from a home on the site of a winery, and exporting 5 million bottles each year to domestic markets and across the world.

The company prides itself on innovation so when they sat down to think about how they could become a ‘21st century business’ the owners of the winery decided that to promote their brand – and to show their thirst for innovation – they would build a hotel on the site of the winery. But this would be no ordinary hotel!

The Marques de Riscal Hotel can be seen from miles around and, as the staff at the Hotel told us, “has generated thousands of pounds worth of publicity and developed an international reputation” for the wine label.

During my stay, I also happened to be reading ‘Purple Cow’ by Seth Godin – a book about marketing and promotion in an age when many others are vying for customer’s attention.

What I was reading on the pages had been lived out in the surroundings in which I found myself. In short:

• The winery owners had done something remarkable. They built a landmark, unique, stunning hotel on their land. This had not been done before and will be a hard act to follow for any other winery.
• Marques de Riscal were not in the business of running Hotels – they were in the business of making wine. So they assembled a world-renowned team to make the project happen. Frank Gehry designed the Hotel, Starwood Group manage it and there’s a third partner running the Spa.
• The company will undoubtedly follow this remarkable project with another one as they can claim a history of innovation; they were the first Spanish winery to import French wine-making techniques and the first to market with many other concepts.

Marques de Riscal sets an examples for other companies to follow. They do remarkable things – continually – to stay ahead of the competition. They also make mighty fine wine!

- Emma Jones

• Hotel Marques de Riscal
• Purple Cow, Seth Godin