Presenting Yelloweek

Starting Tuesday of last week, our glasses bubbled over for Yelloweek by Veuve Clicquot. You may have seen the girls dressed in their classiest French attire riding yellow Veuve bicycles around the city to promote the event. I’ve never seen so much wonderful champagne poured in my life and admittedly it’s going to be tough returning to a normal, less fizzy week.

The champagne house partnered with SAQ outlets, restaurants, bars and stores in the city for an interesting, multi platform celebration of creativity in food, arts and fashion. Starting on Tuesday and going to Sunday (the closing party was last night at Flyjin), each night all week featured a different restaurant as part of the festivities while several bars around the city (though predominantly in Old Montreal, of course) featured Veuve specials. On opening night, Fashion was celebrated at the downtown Birks Jewelry store and featured four different local designers while bubbly flowed all night. On Wednesday, Galerie 203 in Old Montreal featured a slew of artist who had created pieces inspired by the history and colors of Veuve.

On Thursday night I attended the Veuve Clicquot picnic (it felt like an afternoon French garden party) at New City Gas. I was on the arm of a lovely young lady who had gotten herself on the guest list (my two favorite words) and we marched onto the pelouse like we owned the place. After a pricey glass of bubby (for the record, the glass was half full and cost 25$ a glass – better than a slap in the face, I suppose) we lounged by the small Pétanque terrain and watched people try to not fall into the game area. It was a delightful evening for people watching (the only familiar face I saw was Alexandre Despatie which wasn’t so bad. We didn’t dive into any deep conversations, if you must know) and we stayed well into the night chatting with friends, new and old.

As a world premiere, it was interesting to see such an event take place in our city. As far as marketing goes, Yelloweek will ensure the name Veuve Clicquot remain on our lips much longer than a sip of their famous champagne. The company found an interesting way to not only promote its world renowned brand but also they got us talking about local artists and designers, testing new restaurants and bars and I can’t think of a better way to have started the Spring/Summer season.