As passionate sailors ourselves, we couldn’t be more proud to be selected as the Official Wine of the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series in New York and Chicago in May and June.
The America’s Cup is a series of dynamic yachting regattas that challenges the best sailors in the world in both match and fleet racing skills. Considered the oldest trophy in international sport, the regatta represents the pinnacle of world-class yacht racing. During the preliminary competitions, collectively known as the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series, our wines were exclusively poured in the event’s hospitality areas and spectator boats. The regatta, held on May 7 & 8 in New York and Chicago on June 11 & 12, helped to determine the two leading teams that will go on to compete head to head for the America’s Cup in Bermuda in 2017.
Our affiliation with the America’s Cup has flourished over the past 16 years, from our launch of the America’s Cup Reserve series at the 30th America’s Club in Auckland, New Zealand in 2000, to becoming the Official Wine Supplier of Artemis Racing, a challenger for the 34th America’s Cup in 2013.
But of course, our support of sailing is not new. It all started in 1977 when our founder David Stare sponsored the first sailing team at Sonoma State University. By 1982, we began using sailboats on our wine labels. We chose the David S. Stare Reserve Fumé Blanc for our very first sailboat label. At that time, it was seen as a rather daring and risky move, but over time we rolled it out across all of our labels and it has become a trademark of our winery identity.
Over the past three decades, we have sponsored numerous regattas, teams and yacht clubs. We continue to keep the sport of sailing front and center on our label designs and branding across our portfolio of wines.