Freixenet rings the bell: it will sponsor TV3's New Year's Eve chimes after the controversy

Saint Sadurní d'AnoiaFreixenet will sponsor this year's TV3 New Year's Eve broadcast. This has been learned by ARA from sources in the wine sector and confirmed by the director of the public television station, Sigfrid Gras, who explained that the decision has been approved by the board of directors for days. Since the Catalan company Estrella Damm was the sponsor last December 31st, sparkling wine producers had shown their discontent because such a special toast was made with beer and, moreover, with the presenters, Miki Núñez and Laura Escanes, drinking directly from the bottle and not from a glass. Following the controversy that arose the very next day after the broadcast, TV3 made it known that it had been an exceptional case because Estrella Damm had turned 150 years old and, therefore, cava had been sidelined. The Catalan brewery, for its part, declared that the New Year's Eve toast was exciting for them in a year like 2026 and that they considered it the first of many commemorative events throughout the year. All of this led TV3 to insist that toasting with beer had been an exception and that it was committed to continuing to show glasses full of bubbles.

Since January 1st of this year, therefore, the question was: which producer company would sponsor the broadcast? The public television has had several offers from producer companies from the Penedès on the table, producers state. In the end, it will be Freixenet, which could have tripled the economic offer that other sparkling wine companies would have presented to the public television, as stated by one of the brands that had made one for a value of 33,000 euros, and which has been discarded.

Freixenet bubbles for Christmas

This year Freixenet has been in the news for various business movements: one hundred percent of its capital is German, and, furthermore, it has christened the entire business group with the name Freixenet Iberia. According to statements from the management of the company located in Sant Sadurní d’Anoia, “through this collaboration, Freixenet reinforces its role in the culture of celebration and positions itself as a symbol of happiness, joy, and shared moments”.

In the collective imagination, there is the memory of the Freixenet Christmas commercials, in which fifteen women dressed as if they were bubbles wished everyone a Merry Christmas. These commercials were created by Leopoldo Pomés' production company, and journalist Nèstor Luján had always been credited with the idea. In an interview with ARA Mengem, Leopoldo Pomés' widow, Karin Leiz, explained that it was she who thought of a woman acting as a bubble. “It was me who thought of turning a woman into a bubble for the Freixenet commercial as if she were a genie, all dressed in gold. It was a time when you couldn't show anything, not even a neckline. It was the sixties. We also didn't want it to be sexy. We wanted them to be like little genies. I thought of a bubble and in the end, there were up to fifteen".

The first Freixenet Christmas campaign under the creativity of the Barcelona studio was in 1972. Leiz stated that every April they would start working on it so that the commercial would come out for the Christmas campaign. “It was a very daring commercial, because Mr. Josep Ferrer, the owner of Freixenet at the time, was daring”. This year, Freixenet will once again be the protagonist by sponsoring the broadcast of the TV3 New Year's Eve chimes. In previous years, the winery Juvé & Camps, a member of Corpinnat, was the one that had sponsored the broadcast.