In 2014, when Joey Wölffer, her husband and Wölffer Estate Vineyard CEO, Max Rohn, her brother Marc Wölffer, and their business partner, Roman Roth, all came up with the Summer in a Bottle brand — a dry, elegant and light rosé — they had no idea their concept would explode. The proof was in the pudding as their limited initial run ended up selling out in just one month.
“We just kept making more and more Summer in a Bottle,” Joey, 39, tells GRAZIA USA. “We said, ‘OK, this is actually iconic.’ We would put it on the website and immediately we would sell 100,000 bottles and it would disappear.” The colorful bottle, which features flowers and bright colors, has attracted a loyal following from the get-go, and it has now become the de rigeur drink of the Hamptons — any any summer location for that matter.
The making of a modern-day classic began back when Joey’s husband pushed her talk to former design colleagues of his “about the story of Wölffer.” Joey wanted the new bottle to represent her roots, which included her parents’ dinner parties, with household names being part of her fun years ago. For example, Joey recalls Lee Radziwill dancing, while Bianca Jagger’s presence was also a must-see event.
“The designs came back, and they were perfect,” she recalls of seeing her vision come to life. “I said, ‘Oh my God, this is it.’ It was, Who do we want to be? Who are we? And it was so different than what everyone else was doing and we loved that.”
Now the brand is introducing a new product sure to be just as much of a smash: Summer in a Bottle Côtes de Provence, which is made at Chevron Villete’s Château Reillanne, just north of St-Tropez, France. This time, the drink — which is a perfectly pale light rosé color — consists of “amazing aromas of tangerine, citrus, peach and lovely floral notes — a combination that’s sure to impress.
But why mess with the singular perfection of their traditional blend? After gaining a loyal brand following, it was “only natural” that Joey and Co. pondered how they could take the company to another level. “We thought, ‘What is actually the birth place of rosé?’ It’s Provence. It was a process of working with the right people. We actually considered a couple of different wineries and Chevron Villete was just immediately a natural fit.”
What’s even sweeter is that Guillaume de Chevron Villete, who is the owner of nine estates in Provence, was able to grow, produce and make the bottles all in one place. “He is very passionate about his grapes, his vineyards, his process,” Joey notes. “He’s ahead of the times with his machinery and technology, and he’s got everything computerized. We were really impressed with him, and he was also very passionate about the wine that he processes because we were not looking to buy bulk wine.” In fact, Marc, de Chevron Villete, and Roth make the wine together, which is an important detail.
After partnering in 2015 with Argentina’s first female winemaker — Susana Balbo’s Dominio del Plata winery — to produce the Wölffer Finca brand, Rohn and Marc wanted to explore manufacturing in France. “We built Wölffer Finca to a point where people are like, ‘OK, Wölffer can make wine in other places,’ so it wouldn’t be such a stretch to make a wine in Côtes de Provence, whereas beforehand we would have gone from making a New York wine to all of a sudden making wine in Provence. I think it’s a more natural progression now,” Joey says of their latest venture. “We now make rosé in all of the key areas of the world.”
However, their initial plans to expand in France were complicated by COVID-19 and weather-related issues. Despite the ups and downs, Joey explains that since the brand is almost 35 years old, they were “ready to take this on and own it.”
“I don’t think you want to put a product out there in a way that is not fully what you want it to be,” she shares. “It was really important to us that we did it correctly because we are a boutique brand and a family-owned business. I think a lot of times you just want to get it done, but I think the pandemic kind of slowed us down to make us do this correctly.”
As for what people can expect, the bottle and design have a new look that differs slightly from the original. “The capsule is different – it is red and white and blue on the top, which is a little ode to France, and the flowers are more French,” Joey explains. “They are both beautiful bottles, so they both sit nicely together. The flavors are different because the grapes are different.”
Now, more than ever, Joey is passionate about the industry — but that wasn’t always the case growing up. The businesswoman describes herself as “a defiant rebellious teenager” who didn’t have an early interest in learning about her father’s winemaking business. Her father, Christian Wölffer, had the idea of starting Wölffer Estate Vineyard in the Hamptoms after he went to a party and spoke to a man that loved vino. “He said, ‘If this guy can grow grapes, I can grow grapes,’” Joey recalls. The rest is history: Christian slowly grew vines on their property, which was all potato fields at the time, and he asked Roth to come on board. The two started making rosé in 1992, but unfortunately, Christian’s life was cut short when he died in a tragic accident in 2008.
The family then had to decide what they wanted to do with their estate. At the time, Joey was working in fashion, but she “had something pulling me in to want to continue” her father’s legacy. As a result, she asked Roth if they could be partners — a proposal he gladly accepted. Though Roth and Joey didn’t know each other very well, things worked out, as the two of them, along with Rohn and Marc, built their empire together.
Before Christian’s death, he never saw the business make a profit, but Joey and Marc were determined to become a meaningful player in the world of wine. Fortunately, the two have come a long way towards achieving their goal since, and they have other goals in mind going forward.
“We would like to build an international brand with Summer in a Bottle. It has a lot of legs,” Joey says. “We also have a lot of other great products that we’re still making and growing, and there are plenty of options at the winery where people can come and drink and try new wines. I really want to continue this kind of family business feel and that is something that we really stress with people who work for us.”
One of the reasons Joey, Roth, Rohn and Marc have proven to be successful is that they have all grown so close together in such a short amount of time. “As outsiders, we didn’t have this amazing background in wine and beverages, and so therefore we had amazing new ideas,” she admits. “Also not having the experience was somewhat helpful. I think being a small company we are able to take calculated risks. If you’re at a bigger company, there are too many cooks in the kitchen.”
At the end of the day, Joey and her team pride themselves on not having an ego and being friendly with their customers.
“We want this to be a place that you come and say, ‘I feel really comfortable here,’ and so that feeling has to remain no matter how much bigger we get,” she says. “We are not trying to be something to everybody. We are exactly who we are and we’re comfortable in that way and that is something I always stress. Don’t try to be too many things to too many people; just try to be really good at what you do. Our brand is bohemian, it’s floral, it’s free-spirited. We’re not changing that, so that is important.”
Recently, Joey was in Florida at a wine store when two women from different demographics were buying Summer in a Bottle, which melted her heart. “I said, ‘This is the dream.’ A woman from Nantucket who is around 75 years old, and a really cool young woman were both going straight for Summer in a Bottle. I thought, ‘Great, this is exactly who we are. We are a wine for everybody.’”
Looking back on how far the foursome have come, she gushes, “I am a very humble person, but I feel really proud of this. I think this would be a dream come true for our dad to have his brand be recognized in all of these magazines and to have this following.”
She continues, “Working as a team is super challenging, but it’s also amazing to be working with such great people around me, including my family. We all have our different traits that add to the whole team, but we work really well together and it really is a family business. I am proud to say to my kids, ‘We built this.’”
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