The PR firm
l’Eau à la Bouche (EALB) and the Cru Rasteau began working together not so long ago.Strange for a wine appellation you may think ?In fact, not at all… and now the sky’s the limit !

The firm is made up of a young, dynamic, and multi-skilled team: Claude & Fanny: consulting, strategy, artistic direction, Audrey: graphic design and illustration, Mathieu: web and graphic design, Léa: community management.

Discover our interview with Fanny SPIRONELLI and Claude RIGOULET, the two founders of the firm who are passionate, dynamic, and great fun !

AOC Rasteau : Claude, Fanny, could you tell us the story behind EALB ?

Claude : Fanny contacted me at just the right moment in my career and in my life. And our friendship became a professional encounter. We were both seeking more independence in our careers and wanted to put our experience to good use. We embarked on a new adventure which we hoped would be rich in encounters, varied projects, and original creations. And it has proved to be just that.

Fanny : I’ve never been good with authority! That’s the main reason why I wanted to be my own boss. And there were lots of other reasons, doing things better than the rest (of course!), thinking through our own approaches, actions, creations, etc.

Aoc Rasteau : What are your respective professional backgrounds? Are you complementary?

Claude : I caught the bug very early on. As the granddaughter of a winegrower and daughter of an oenologist from the Champagne region, it follows that I was attracted by the world of wine. After attending business school, I did a Masters in wine trading at Dijon which allowed me to join the Pernod Ricard group before turning towards the Rhone Valley wines (ORTAS cooperative cellar of Rasteau and Maison Ogier). Fanny and I have similar training backgrounds and experiences but are complementary in terms of our domains of predilection, our creative outlooks and… our characters!

Fanny : I followed the usual path of a girl from eastern France with a soft spot for wine; a year of preparatory studies followed by business school and then an MBA in the United States specialising in Luxury Products. I went on to work for 5 years in the field of wine and champagne in the US before returning to France to work on ‘Fat Bastard’ (a wine brand created by Gabriel Meffre). And then came a desire to evolve towards gastronomy and the decision to create L’Eau à la Bouche! Claude and I have similar career backgrounds and are very complementary, sometimes very different. That is one of our strengths and ensures the depth of our proposals which are systematically debated in-house before leaving the firm (rest assured…without any black eyes!).

AOC Rasteau: Why the name ‘L’eau à la bouche’ (which roughly translates as ‘mouth-watering’) for two ladies coming from the world of wine?

Claude : Well yes, wine is important but is not the be all and end all. Basically, we have a great appetite for life in general. We love good wine and good food. And we prone an art of living and the value of sharing. L’eau à la bouche is the combination of all that.

Fanny : It is more than just a PR firm in fact, it is a philosophy of life. We like eating and eating well. We believe you need to love a product to communicate about it effectively. I’m feeling hungry just thinking about it!

Aoc Rasteau : Why switch from wine to communication?

Claude : It’s not that we’ve switched from one to the other, the two were already connected in our respective jobs. It is just a natural evolution of our experiences and desires.

Fanny : Drinking it wasn’t enough… we wanted to make a living out of it too!

Aoc Rasteau : You both seem to be as versatile as a swiss army knife! How would you sum up your range of skills?

Claude : I like the idea of a Swiss army knife, it reminds me of my years as a scout! Could we be the MacGyvers of marketing? I love that idea. We like to say that with the force of our past experiences, creativity, common sense and hard work we can move mountains!

Fanny : There’s nothing we don’t know how to do in fact. Except maybe pole vaulting… I’m not great at that, but that’s about all.

Aoc Rasteau : Is your firm exclusively turned towards the world of wines and spirits?

Claude : It’s definitely our favourite sector but the adventure of l’eau à la bouche is also the chance for us to move into new fields and areas of expertise.

Fanny : Gastronomy (artisanal products, restaurants), hotels and tourism are now also our core fields of expertise. We have opened our arms to other sectors associated with wine and we appreciate and benefit every day from this widening of our horizons.

Aoc Rasteau : Let’s imagine you have a bottle of Rasteau wine in your possession; where and how would you choose to enjoy it?


Claude : With friends obviously. On an autumn evening when the weather has cooled down, in the warmth, sitting around a beautiful table and accompanying a dish of veal with a morel mushroom sauce.

Fanny : I love red meat so I would say that a good bottle of Rasteau would help me (and a few friends of course) to devour a large prime rib of matured Aubrac beef, by the fireside… but with no animal fur rugs in sight!

Aoc Rasteau : If you had to represent the Cru Rasteau wines in 1 visual what would it resemble?

Claude : A convivial table, sunshine, lovely food and a background of the colours of Provence.

Fanny : The hilltop village, a touch ‘irreducible’, which gives its force and personality to its unique, generous and yet accessible wines (it’s not 1 visual but there it is!).

Thank you, Fanny and Claude, for giving your time to the appellation! And thanks to all the team of l’Eau à la Bouche with whom we take great pleasure in working on current, and future, Cru Rasteau projects.