In December 2023, our long-standing client and partner Champagne René Jolly, is on the front page of “The Wine Kingdom” in Japan! A great distinction for this company which continues to make a name for itself.
We met Pierre-Eric Jolly more than 15 years ago as part of professional support for the protection, valuation and industrial exploitation of his invention, the “3-leg muselet.”, an ecological invention dedicated to Champagne. See our article “A story of Champagne” here.
Today we are proud, after Pierre-Eric’s achievements, to be associated (at least a little bit) with this impressive success!
On the occasion of the publication of this major magazine in Japan, Pierre-Eric does us the honor of sending us his testimony. He relates his history and his rise, and also the different stages which led him to his current success.
Discover his testimony below:
The story began in 2004. On a business trip organized by the Reims Chamber of Commerce (France), with the aim of creating export contacts for Champagne producers wishing to expand their market, I met several importers in Japan.
“Qualité Et Prix”, then a family-owned hotel group with 27 bars and 41 restaurants, decided to place an initial order of 10 cases (120 bottles), apologizing for the modest size of their purchase. I politely replied that I was a young winemaker in charge of a bicentenary company and that we had the future ahead of us…
Other importers were more ambitious, and I came back with an order for 1,500 bottles in the first year. After three years, I had eight importers and several thousand bottles sold in the country, reaching 25% of my turnover. It was a dazzling success! I was in the right place at the right time, with a good-quality product.
Things got complicated in 2008. I quickly felt that the market was too small to have all these distributors. They were competing with each other with the same bottles. The risk was that the image of our products would be tarnished with promotional offers on an end aisle display, a potentially deadly situation for our image.
I decided to visit my importers to evaluate their working methods. “Qualité Et Prix”, taking advantage of a change in Japanese law, was now offering our bottles to other hotels and restaurants (which was not possible before). Their substantive work was precise and well done. I decided to end our relations with the other distributors and give them exclusivity.
This is where one of the importers told me that he had registered our trademarks in Japan and that everything had to go through him. After some research and a year of anxiety, I was able to circumvent his “mistake” and register my trademarks in Japan and elsewhere. (For the record, he had fortunately made a mistake in the titles).
This misadventure, which fortunately ended well, made me realize the importance of trademark protection. Since then, I have entrusted this mission to Brandon IP, a firm specializing in intellectual property.
20 years later, in 2024, distribution has become nationwide in Japan, with thousands of bottles sent to “Qualité et Prix” every year. We are now honoured to be featured on the cover of Wine Kingdom’s “Champagne” magazine in December 2023. This is a wonderful launch for our 20th anniversary, this symbolic move into adulthood.
Pierre-Eric Jolly, winemaker.
