This year, Wines from Rioja linked up with the Times, for a Rioja and gastropub dining promotion. Entitled “The Times Gastropub Offer in association with Wines from Rioja”, readers were invited to collect tokens to take up the offer of 2 for 1 for a meal with a glass of Rioja wine at gastropubs and restaurants nationwide. The offer was available until 30th June 2009.

Participating restaurants were provided with branded Rioja POS items such as menus and posters in advance. The promotion ran in print in the Times daily from 18th April until 1st May, including the Sunday Times editions, reaching an impressive combined audience of approximately 4.8 million readers.

The promotion also featured on the Times Online for the same two week period, with full list of participating gastro pubs, rotating banner ads and a Wines from Rioja website link, which reached an additional 6 million readers.

The offer was also linked in with Closer Online, a female-focused consumer website, with an estimated 133,000 unique users. Running in conjunction with the Times offer, visitors to the Closer website were invited to enter a competition to win a holiday, with a case of Rioja wine for 6 runners ups. The competition was very well received with over 5,000 entries, much higher than usual according to the people at Closer.

For further information regarding Wine & Dine, please contact Lucy Richardson at lucy.richardson@phippspr.co.uk