Three entrepreneurs behind a proposed Canadian-owned microbrewery, boutique hotel and restaurant in Tuscany, Italy have named Korrelation Communications as PR agency of record.
Restaurateur Alida Solomon of Toronto’s Tutti Matti, brewer Frank Heaps (a pioneer of Upper Canada and Steam Whistle Brewing) and Toronto real estate professional James Estrin are aiming to open Tutti Matti Tuscany by Aug. 2016. It will be housed in a renovated 17th century villa minutes from Siena that will include a fine dining restaurant, café/brew pub, microbrewery and 12-room hotel on a 100-acre site.
Korrelation will support a series of marketing and PR campaigns for Tutti Matti Tuscany, including media relations and content development. The boutique agency, which opened in 2009, has a variety of food, beverage, hotel, and tourism industry clients. Tutti Matti Tuscany is seeking PR help for its launch and is also aiming to get venture capitalists on board, says Korrelation principal Pamela Singh.
Solomon says a number of PR agencies were interviewed for the mandate, but it was hard to find one that clicked with the venture. “It’s a hospitality monster, it’s a huge project and not everybody understood it. You had to understand what all the businesses meant coming together and [Singh] got it,” she says.
Solomon spent most of her childhood in Tuscany. She opened her Tuscan restaurant Tutti Matti (which means “everybody’s crazy”) downtown Toronto in 2002, but “I’ve been talking about finding a way to work back to where I learned how to cook for years. I want to cook Tuscany food in Tuscany.”
Tutti Matti Tuscany has the support of several angel investors in the Toronto area, but is seeking additional investors to raise $8.8 million. “We’re getting there,” Solomon says of the financing. “I’ve drank my own Kool Aid so much. It’s just a matter of convincing people that this is a safe investment. We couldn’t have found a better place for tourism, for the brewery, for business.”
