“The trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast and you miss all you are traveling for.”  –  Louis L’Amour

Wine Harlots are a marketer’s dream.  If you’re a regular reader, you are already fully aware of how much we love promotional items, but this item has the Wine Harlots in full obsession mode.  We can’t stop thinking about it.  Every time we do, we smile (Note to non-regular readers, in yesterday’s tidbit we mentioned the Collio region is shaped like a smile, so it’s a callback.  Now that you’re caught up with the lesson, let’s move on).

Collio in Vespa is a program where visitors can rent or borrow scooters to assist in the exploration of the Collio.  But not just any scooters, bright yellow Vespa’s emblazoned with the Collio brand.  Sunny yellow is the color of the white wines of the region; Collio has adopted the color as part of their marketing campaign.

Collio in Vespa was created by restaurateur Josko Sirk and wine maker Edi Keber (both will be profiled in future articles, suffice to say, no trip to Collio is complete without meeting this dynamic duo).  To celebrate of the removal of the border checkpoint between Italy and Slovenia, which occurred on December 20, 2007, Edi and Josko road their jauntily yellow Vespa’s all night back and forth across the former boundary to symbolize the reunification between the Italian Collio and the Slovenian Collio and to commemorate a Europe without borders.

After realizing how much fun they were having, an idea was born.  A high visibility project to raise the profile of the Collio while providing a useful and fun way for visitors to explore the area.  And Wine Harlots can’t think of a better way to discover Collio, zipping around the rural hills of the area on a sassy yellow scooter.  And sassy, it is.  Emblazoned on some of the Vespa’s are a nude black woman raising a glass of Collio wine with the caption “L’unico bianco che amo.” (“The only white I love.”)  Maybe it doesn’t appeal to everyone’s sensibilities, the Wine Harlots love it, but then again, we are harlots!

On the Wine Harlots to-do list:  Collio in Vespa in the Springtime.  Anyone else in to tool around the Collio?

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