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Oregon’s Copa Di Vino needs help with Super Bowl bid

By Eric Degerman on September 21, 2013

Copa Di Vino in The Dalles, Ore., hopes to become win a free TV advertisement to be broadcast during the 2014 Super Bowl.

One of Oregon’s hottest-selling wines, Copa Di Vino in The Dalles, is in the running for a free Super Bowl Sunday TV commercial and is seeking votes.

Intuit, a subsidiary of QuickBooks, is offering business promotional help with its “Small Business, Big Game” promotion.

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Predictably, hundreds of businesses in the United States have entered the contest, but Copa Di Vino is looking to become “the first winery to have its own Super Bowl ad.”

Several years ago, James Martin created Copa Di Vino after launching Quenett Cellars in The Dalles. His slogan for Copa Di Vino is “wine in the glass,” and consumption of the single-serving recyclable plastic vessels begins after simply peeling off the lid as you would with a cup of yogurt.

Martin’s slogan is, “It’s not a glass. It’s a Copa.”

Two of his wines — the Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Grigio — earned silver medals at the 2013 Northwest Wine Summit. Copa’s portfolio includes Chadonnay, Merlot, Moscato, Riesling and White Zinfandel.

There’s no corkscrew and no need to open an entire bottle for a glass of wine. And there is no glass involved, which makes it easy to serve and a safe alternative to use at venues such as concerts, stadiums and picnics where there is concern about breakage.

According to Martin, Copa Di Vino is available in more than 40 states, and regular tax reports from the Oregon Liquor Control Commission indicate Martin’s winery with the largest sales of any in the state.

Copa Di Vino operates a booth at trade shows such as the Washington Association of Wine Grape Growers in Kennewick. (Eric Degerman/Great Northwest Wine)

He continues to sell his Quenett brand through the Copa Di Vino site, and he operates tasting rooms in both Hood River and at the Sunshine Mill Winery inside a historic building and landmark he’s revived in The Dalles. And his team actively markets Copa both to consumers and at trade shows such as the Washington Association of Wine Grape Growers annual convention.

Intuit got some juice for its campaign by hiring Jerry Johnson, who coached the Dallas Cowboys to a pair of Super Bowl titles. Johnson stars in a mildly entertaining commercial by Intuit, which promotes its contest.

The first round of the four-step competition ends later in September.

“Why should beer have all the funny commercials?” is Copa Di Vino’s campaign slogan.

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About Eric Degerman

Eric Degerman is the President and CEO of Great Northwest Wine. He is a journalist with more than 30 years of daily newspaper experience and has been writing about wine since 1998. He co-founded Wine Press Northwest magazine with Andy Perdue and served as its managing editor for a decade. He is a frequent wine judge at international wine competitions throughout North America and orchestrates 10 Northwest competitions each year.