The story of Zonzo Estate and how Zoncello became the drink of the summer

Fan mail is typically reserved for celebrities but an exception has been made for a winery with a star lineup of spritzes.

It’s not out of the ordinary for Zonzo Estate to receive handwritten letters from consumers with messages like, “I’d love for you to be part of my special day” and “Zoncello is the drink of the summer”.

Zonzo Estate’s Zoncello Limoncello Spritz, Bellina Bellini Di Christina, and Cicchio Pistachio Spritz not only make up the Yarra Valley winery’s popular aperitivo pack but also have transformed the Yarra Valley winery’s business.

Rod Micallef, the owner of Zonzo Estate, is self-admittedly brand-obsessed and the mastermind behind the bold spritzes that will inevitably top tables and fill eskies this summer.

“I think the main thing that separates us is that we have a home for our brands,” Micallef told Inside Retail. “I think we have that story, passion is there on show every day and you can visit it – you can come to our home and be a part of it.” 

Micallef bought the vineyard that would become Zonzo Estate in 2015, with aspirations of building the next iconic Australian wine label. 

To create cash flow and fund his long-term vision during the pandemic, he started bottling ‘Bellini Di Christina’, a bellini-inspired drink named after his wife, and a limoncello liqueur that he had been making at home for decades.

But it was the advent of Zoncello, a product that combined the spritz factor of Bellina and the lemon flavour profile of the liqueur, that took Zonzo Estate to million-bottle-brand status.

Zonzo Estate’s rise in popularity and bottle shop fame in Australia was not overnight and its story resembles something closer to a fashion brand than a typical FMCG company.

Zoncello has created a cult-like following for the brand, winning over the next generation of drinkers, who await restocks and the next flavour drop.

From runaway demand

The winery launched its eponymous Zoncello in February 2023 and it was an immediate hit; it couldn’t bottle the limoncello spritz fast enough.

“Losing track of how much we’ve sold is probably somewhat acceptable in the way that it’s just been a whirlwind,” Micallef joked.

In the early days after releasing Zoncello, Zonzo Estate had to send out the product in countless different formats because its supply could barely keep up with the demand. It had to use whatever corks, bottles and prosecco were available at the time, much to Micallef’s dismay.

Fast forward to today, the team at Zonzo Estate has overcome the learning curve and increased production from its initial seven pallets at a time.

While scarcity typically benefits wineries, and may have helped create buzz around the launch of Zonzo Estate’s limoncello spritz, Micallef is not keen to experience another shortage.

“I think if people are on the hunt for your product it’s great…The positive light for this is that people were looking for the product and going into bottle stores – multiple bottle stores – and asking for it,” Micallef said.

He remembers that bottle shops started calling the winery to attempt to place an order after hearing the demand for the product firsthand.

While having a sold-out product initially worked in Zonzo Estate’s favour, its goal this summer is not to run out of stock and keep the Zoncello pouring freely.

“I didn’t see any negatives last summer running out but I do see a negative in running out this year,” Micallef confessed.

“With so many new players, it is obviously going to be easy to obtain another [similar product]…And although I think ours is still number one in taste, that would just hurt the business.”

Fast followers 

Zonzo Estate was the first in the world to bottle a limoncello spritz but as with anything gaining traction in the FMCG industry, dupes, copies and imitations of the winery’s star sparkling wine started appearing on shelves across the country.

“We call them fast followers,” Micallef said. “I’m aware of probably 10-plus similar products with unashamedly almost copied branding,” he said.

Zonzo Estate’s invention of Zoncello and its following spritzes required the ATO to create a new taxation category called ‘vegetable wine’ – which only cements its position as the Australian leader in the spritz category.

There are perks to being the pioneer of a category and not the buccaneer. Micallef believes Zonzo Estate, and in particular Zoncello’s, continued success is because it was first-to-market and the original.

“I was waiting for this year to have a bit of a downturn because I thought there are so many competitors now…I’m probably still surprised in that regard, that it’s still accelerating and growing,” Micallef said.

“I don’t know how much of a percentage share they’re taking but I’m surprised that it’s continual success, considering the amount of competition.”

Ready-to-drink

Zonzo Estate re-introduced Zoncello in a new ready-to-drink (RTD) canned format in September, just in time for peak season and the product’s second summer. The launch should scale the best-selling limoncello spritz to further success and leave the brand’s fast followers behind.

The instructions for Zonzo Estate’s bottled spritzes are simple: “Best served chilled and in good company.” But more specifically, Micallef noted, they are to be poured over ice – an instruction that contradicts the point of an RTD.

“For me, 30 seconds on ice, the product is exactly where it needs to be, perfect, but if you have it straight out of the bottle, just in a glass without ice, I find that that’s not exactly the way I want it to be,” Micallef elaborated.

“So when we’re going straight to the can, I obviously had to change the formula, because for RTD it had to be ready to drink; straight out of the can into your mouth.

“It had to have the profile that I wanted, so I did make a slight adjustment…[Would] the consumer ever notice? Possibly, but I highly doubt it.”

The RTD solves two problems for consumers: easy portability and portion control. Now, Zonzo Estate’s spritz fans don’t have to commit to an entire 750ml bottle and risk the bubbles going flat after only a glass or two.

If it wasn’t for the encouragement of The Endeavour Group and the requests of customers for the Zoncello and Bellina spritzes to be made available in cans, Micallef might never have been persuaded.

“Personally, the apprehension was huge because I didn’t really want to go into cans quite frankly,” he stated.

In addition to missing the ritual of pouring bottled spritzes over ice and having to tweak the formula, Micallef had other concerns about cans.

“I suppose the scary bit for me on the canning is that cans come with an expiry date, and [bottles] don’t have expiry dates,” he said. “That’s something that I’m very comfortable with, if we overshoot with wine, all the better…that deadline must be solved.”

As it turns out, Zonzo Estate didn’t have a deadline issue with the cans. Within the first two weeks of launching, the canned Zoncello was sold out. Albeit, the first run totalled only 56,000 cans. Micallef stopped production early because the cans looked more gold than Zoncello’s signature shade of fluorescent yellow.

The end game

Zonzo Estate’s investment and innovation in the spritz category is not to be mistaken as a pivot away from its goal to establish itself as a winery.

“There’s nothing more I would love than to run our winery. That’s the long-term goal,” Micallef shared.

He is making a long play. Zonzo Estate’s independent research revealed that it’s difficult to get an existing wine drinker connected to a young brand and getting wine drinkers above the age of 40 attached to its red and white wines was nearly impossible.

“With Zoncello, Bellina and Cicchio, we attract the new-age drinker…We attach them to the Zonzo brand and when their palate develops and they say, ‘I’m ready to try red wine’, then hopefully they trust the brand enough to look at us first,” Micallef explained.

“And then we’ve got a lifelong customer. Once they’re attached, what our research shows is that they’re very hard to remove.”

It’s this playbook that has guided Micallef’s creative direction over the last few years for Zonzo Estate.

“I suppose that’s where we start with the branding – to look at the demographic, to look at what we want to achieve, and those long-term plays – none of it is, ‘Let’s do this because it’s cool,’ ” Micallef revealed.

No detail is overlooked and everything is a considered choice when Micallef and his team at Zonzo bring a product to life. They build entire worlds for each spritz flavour through branding and marketing.

“I’m not here to take over the beverage world. I mean that would be nice if it happens but that’s not my whole intent. My purpose is to create beautiful products that our customers enjoy, and that’s my first goal. If they take over a category, well, amazing, good on us,” he concluded.

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