Last week I took part of an interesting watch event in San Francisco at the Swatch Group flagship store: Tourbillon. It was a wine and watch pairing event! What, you ask? How does one pair a wine with a watch? Seems comical. Correct. The point here is less about pairing as in drinks and food, but rather logical pairing. Let me describe what transpired and explain the rational.
The Tourbillon San Francisco boutique is located near Post and Grant streets, which is blocks away from San Francisco’s Union Square. This area is perhaps the largest concentration of luxury brands in the city. Across the street is Harry Winston, while Cartier, Hermès, Dior, Goyard, and other luxury venues are within walking distance.
The boutique has been around for a few years and carries all the major Swatch Group brands. Specifically the Swatch brands that offer a tourbillon watch. So Breguet, Blancpain, Jaquet Droz, Glashütte Original, and Omega are the main selections.
While this store has had various watch events in the past, this is the first time I attended one with such a whimsical theme. Previous events were also watch brand specific; for instance, watching the America’s Cup with Omega on a boat on the bay, or my favorite, hand painting a Jaquet Droz enameled dial and taking my valiant attempt home...
Talking to the boutique’s staff, I could discern two reasons behind this event. First, wine tasting was something they could do and involve all of their brands. And second, wine is such an important part of the Northern California, Bay Area culture, it was one that they were sure to attract their current clients and potential new customers.
To emcee the event and act as sommelier, the boutique invited Michael Green, who has written about wines for over 20 years in various leading publications and networks such as Gourmet Magazine, CNN, and The Food Network. Michael paired the wine trying to match the core characteristics of the tasting notes with the different brands mottos and descriptions.
Of course, clearly not a scientific process nor even perhaps useful pairing criteria, the results were to my surprise, a hit. The number of happy attendees that I could chat with and snap some pics of is the proof. Plus, all the boutique staff were busy showing select watches from the brands to the all too happy customers.
Did that result in sales for the store, not sure. But perhaps that’s not the point. Watches, as we know, are emotional objects. Like art, we don’t need them to survive nor to prosper nor to function. However, like art, they are part of the essentials to what makes us human as they help stir and revive our emotional self. Looking at the eyes and reactions of the attendees, you could say, Tourbillon’s event was a resounding success.
If you are visiting San Francisco or are located in the Bay Area, I encourage you to visit the Tourbillon boutique in San Francisco and ask the friendly staff to show you some of their watches, whatever the occasion. tourbillon.com
The boys from Brooklyn are back with their (now annual) watch fair event in the heart of San Francisco: Wind^Up. Using the same location as last year, Zach, Blake, and the rest of the Worn & Wound crew managed to assemble 30+ plus watch brands to show their novelties and in some cases new watches being introduced for the first time at the fair.