LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Expect to see Vaud Chasselas soon in Copacabana, during the World Cup, served in the Hublot watch VIP lounge.

Jean-Claude Biver and his ultra-luxe watch company Hublot are giving wines from canton Vaud a serious marketing boost through a new partnership: Hublot and the OVV, the Vaud Wine Organization, announced 9 May that Hublot is the new main partner of the OVV.

The company is the only watchmaker based in Vaud and Biver, its chairman – who is also chairman of the watch division of the LVMH luxury goods group – has long been a huge fan of Vaud wines, Chasselas in particular. He’s a farmer in his spare time, raising cows and making top-quality summer high pasture cheese that he gives to friends and business contacts. The launch of the new partnership ended with guests heading home with emblematic black Hublot bags with a bottle of Vaud Chasselas wine and a chunk of Biver’s cheese.

In concrete terms, the new partnership will start with marketing events in Switzerland and elsewhere, with Hublot using its 70 boutiques and 750 sales points worldwide to boost the profile of the wines.

The partners were working closely together even before formalizing and announcing the deal, which wasn’t given a pricetag. Small groups of Vaud wine producers have been visiting China and Japan, with financial help from Hublot, to start building networks in order to export their wines to these markets. Asked what the producers got out of the visits earlier this month, Pierre Keller, president of the OVV laughed, “They sold some wine!” And, he added more seriously, “they started to make contacts, and that’s what it all comes down to.”