• by Karl Greenberg , November 8, 2011

General Motors' Buick division has had a lot of success with its Enclave SUV, which one might argue did for that brand what the CTS did for Cadillac. But while sibling Cadillac is all about luxury as embodied in performance vehicles, Buick is about near-luxury and a brand identity around epicurean lifestyles and community experiences.

The division has been running invitation-only grassroots programs (the Buick Discovery Tour) around the U.S. over the past couple of years in which consumers participate in communal gourmet cook-offs wherein top chefs prepare dishes and attendees get to taste the fare and then, of course, compare vehicles. 

Where better to take this positioning and a vehicle like the Enclave than California's Napa Valley, and its "Sideways"-style vineyard road-trip culture. Buick is vineyard hopping in a new program that launched this week (hopefully there’s a designated driver) involving wine tasting, food and blogging.

The company is partnering with the Napa Valley Film Festival and a Parnassus-funded social media event series called "Tweet House" for the road trip. There is even a film involved, though obviously not the above-mentioned “Sideways” from 2004 (which featured something small and imported.) Rather, the drive ends with a tasting featuring the producers of the hit indie film “Bottle Shock,” a documentary about the 1976 wine competition termed the “Judgment of Paris” – where California wine defeated French wine in a blind taste test.

During the festival, Buick is title sponsor of the Buick Tweet House venue at the Avia Hotel in downtown Napa. The “Tweet House” organizers and bloggers such as one Barbara Evans, known as "The Wine Gal," hit the road on Tuesday, bound for the festival in a 2012 Enclave carrying a bottle of 1974 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon.

The tour starts in Woodinville, Wash., at a place called Herbfarm Restaurant, then heads to Eugene, Ore., and the King Estate winery. There, bloggers will dine at the King Estate's restaurant, then head to Humboldt, Calif., and spend the night at Carter House Inn, dining at “Restaurant 301.″

At The Buick Tweet House, the travelers, along with the producers of "Bottle Shock" and other Buick Tweet House guests, including actors Adrian Grenier ("Entourage") and Jeffrey Wright, and comic Dane Cook, will get to pull the cork and tipple the 1974 Cabernet, and other Napa Valley wines.

A Buick spokesperson tells Marketing Daily that Buick will have vehicles at the festival, for show and as shuttle-craft for attendees and influencers. "We will have tons of tweets going on about this, but from our perspective it's about getting to people who would not normally consider us." He says that about 49% of Enclave buyers come to the vehicle from competitive brands, and 41% of buyers of any Buick vehicle come from competitive marques, 20% of whom are from import brands.

While Buick isn't requiring that bloggers and tweeters involved mention the brand, "We are hoping hey are impressed enough with the vehicle that they will tweet or include it in blogs," he says. "It's not about us going out and telling people how great our product is, but experiencing our product the way you live your life. These people would be going to the festival anyway, so it's about them experiencing our product and telling others about it."