Leading Prosecco brand Bottega has opened its first rooftop Prosecco bar in London in collaboration with the Accor hotel group.
Called Bottega Terrazza @ Bokan the bar, inside the five-star Novotel London Canary Wharf, serves Bottega’s wines and spirits paired with Italian cuisine.
Housed on the rooftop of the hotel, on the 39th floor, the venue is the first opening of a Bottega branded Prosecco bar London.
“The collaboration with Accor represents an important point of arrival for our project and is a stimulus to maintain and further improve the quality of our products and our service” Bottega president, Sandro Bottega, told db.
“We also have Bottega bars at Birmingham airport, the Bath and Royal Windsor racecourses and in Guernsey on the terrace of the Slaughterhouse.
“In July we will announce two more openings in the UK. We have opened numerous bars in the UK because it’s a receptive market and people want quality Prosecco. Through our bars we are promoting the culture of Prosecco and its ability to pair with both Italian and international dishes.
“The arrival of Prosecco rosé, which debuted last year with great success, offers us another string to our bow, because it is a great product in terms of quality and potential longevity,” he added. The aim is to replicate the Bokan concept if it proves successful.
“The Bokan is a flagship bar for us and if it works well we could replicate the model. We don’t want to be everywhere, our goal is five openings per year, choosing situations where there is leisure, joy and relaxation,” Bottega said. He doesn’t believe the bars will steal market share from Bottega’s retail sales.
“Our favourite locations for the retail project are airports, cruise ships, shopping malls, railway stations and five-star hotels. We choose places of passage that are functional to our desire to educate people in the consumption of Prosecco,” he said.
The Prosecco Bar format was launched in 2014 aboard the Cinderella ship, part of the Viking group, which operates on the Baltic Sea.
Over the years, the format has been introduced in various international airports, including Rome Fiumicino, Dubai, Birmingham, Bologna, Milan Malpensa and the two Bulgarian airports of Burgas and Varna.
The first Bottega bar in a hotel was launched in Oman at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Muscat, in the Seychelles Islands on the beach of the Hilton Labriz Hotel (Silhouette Island), and in Tokyo on the terrace of the Anchor Gate Hotel.
Meanwhile, the recovery of Bottega continues after the decline recorded in 2020 linked to the collapse in sales in the duty free channel, which in 2019 generated 25% of the company’s revenues.
In the first quarter of 2021, Bottega recorded a growth of 31.9% compared to the same period of 2020 and also a +11.5% compared to the same period of 2019.
Sandro Bottega is optimistic about the restart times of sales in duty free, where Bottega Gold is the leader in the Prosecco category.
“I think there will be an important rebound in the coming weeks for the travel retail channel. Within a year, everything will return to normal and consequently our sales will also return to pre-Covid levels,” he said.
