Invivo Veritas: Taking a path less trodden

The wine brand was founded in 2008 by marketer Tim Lightbourne and winemaker Rob Cameron, old school friends living in the United Kingdom, who saw a gap in the market for delicious and unpretentious wine from their homeland, “100% bullshit free”.

Seventeen years on, with celebrity heavyweights Graham Norton and Sarah Jessica Parker in their corner, Tim and Rob’s enthusiasm for New Zealand wine, in particular Sauvignon Blanc, remains steadfast. “You cannot deny that Marlborough is the Champagne of Sauvignon Blanc,” says Rob. “There is nowhere better on the planet that makes wine, that tastes like it does, than Marlborough. We don’t celebrate that enough. We don’t tell that story enough.”

In the beginning, they followed a traditional path, but wine trade shows didn’t work for Invivo. “We were just doing what everyone else was doing,” Tim says. “We quickly realised that our strength was in relationship building, collaborations and partnerships.” Invivo moved away from “hosted tastings at countless retailers” and instead got involved in the music and arts scene, aligning with innovators and thought leaders.

The approach was simple: “To connect with people and make great wine”. It seems fitting therefore, that Invivo chose crowdfunding to expand its business. The only New Zealand wine company to use this approach to raising funds, Invivo became the largest crowdfunded company in the Southern Hemisphere. In its first foray, 20% of the company was made public, with a $2 million investment by 439 new shareholders. Today, Invivo has more than 800 shareholders accumulated through three crowdfunding campaigns.

‘Going public’ turned Tim and Rob’s vision of having more direct control of their company into a reality. They promptly secured vineyard lease agreements and purchased a winemaking facility in Waikato’s Te Kauwhata, moving in in 2016. “Our winery was once home to Romeo Bragato, where he was based and did his research,” Rob says. “We love that Invivo now resides where Romeo wrote the blueprint for grape growing in New Zealand.” When Invivo moved into their new ‘old’ facility, there was capacity for fermenting about 180,000 litres of wine. The company has since expanded production closer to 3.5 million litres, and now manages its own bottling and packaging on site.

They haven’t been immune to the challenges of the wine industry, say Invivo’s founders. “The last couple of years have been difficult, but we’ve continued to look at things through a different lens and have worked hard to leverage our partnerships.” That different lens has seen them fly “Cloud Wine”, the Invivo Air experience, protest port closures, and launch the He Devil non fungible tokens, among myriad other attention-grabbing concepts.

Comedian Graham Norton and actress Sarah Jessica Parker entered the fray in 2014 and 2019 respectively, as unique wine partners in the production of their eponymous wines. Covid made collaborative winemaking tricky, but Invivo was no stranger to creative marketing and Kiwi ingenuity. Blending sessions were held for all the 2021 wines with the aid of video conferencing – Graham taking the assemblage process to another level on the big screen at Auckland’s Eden Park stadium.

Celebrity alignments come in all shapes and sizes, but Invivo’s approach appears to have strengthened their brand authentically. “It’s long known that the UK consumer palate is different to the US consumer,” says Rob. “This is the beauty of our partnerships and the blending we do with Graham and SJ.”

Wine tracking during Covid

Within its portfolio, Invivo crafts three Marlborough Sauvignon Blancs: Invivo, Graham Norton and Invivo X, SJP. “We love the fact that we have Graham and SJ to steer the blending process,” says Rob. “I produce base wines that will hopefully lend themselves to their styles. Graham doesn’t want a tropical fruit bomb. He wants freshness and crispness.”

The UK consumer remains nostalgic for their first experience with Kiwi Sauvignon, he says. “It’s that zinginess, racy lime green that they relate to still.” Sarah Jessica Parker, on the other hand, was more familiar with Chardonnay than Sauvignon Blanc at the time of meeting Tim and Rob. This prompted an alternative approach to Invivo X, SJP. “It’s completely different with SJ,” says Rob. “Sauvignon is very versatile, so we talked about taking some aspects of Chardonnay and adding them to Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. We started off with that basic premise, that we would be more on the tropical side, it’d be a little softer and really textural, and we do use oak in there as well.”

There is still much enthusiasm and opportunity for New Zealand wine, he adds. “We were in Dallas recently, visiting a buyer. It’s winter in Dallas only four days of the year – Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc is perfect for this place. They were excited for our wine, excited to see more of it come in. New Zealand is under-indexing in the state of Texas.”

“Look around your backyard [Marlborough],” Rob says. “You live in a monoculture for a reason, because people want it.” He recalls “being in awe” when visiting the region as a young winemaker. “It was like meeting your childhood heroes; meeting the winemakers and tasting their wines. And there was so much passion, and innovation, and excitement. And we’ve lost a bit of that. We need to get it back.”