Monet's Palate® Expands Licensing Initiative to Cider and Ready-to-Drink Beverages

Seeks strategic partners for alcoholic and non-alcoholic cider and RTDs, extending the Monet lifestyle into two dynamic beverage categories

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, UNITED STATES, October 2, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Monet's Palate^® Wine & Spirits Partnership LLC today announced the expansion of its strategic licensing initiative into alcoholic and non-alcoholic cider and ready-to-drink beverages, and is actively seeking established producers and marketers interested in developing premium products inspired by the life, home and lifestyle of Claude Monet.

The expansion follows the company's recently announced initiative to identify a strategic winery partner to develop a premium Monet's Palate^® wine portfolio. That program is part of a broader strategy to extend the Monet experience beyond museums and into everyday living through carefully selected products rooted in the artist's authentic world of gardens, food, entertaining and French country life.

For cider, that connection is remarkably literal.

When Claude Monet came to Giverny in 1883, he rented an abandoned farmhouse on land known as Le Pressoir - “The Cider Press” - where cider had once been produced. The property included an apple orchard and became Monet's home for the remaining 43 years of his life and the setting for the gardens, family meals and entertaining that became inseparable from the Monet story. Monet purchased the property in 1890.

“You could hardly invent a more natural extension of the Monet story,” said Aileen Bordman, founder of Monet's Palate^®. “Monet's home was Le Pressoir. Apples and cider were part of the agricultural landscape of Normandy and part of the world in which he lived. A Monet's Palate cider doesn't require us to manufacture a brand story - the story was already there.”

That provenance gives Monet's Palate^® an unusually authentic foundation from which to enter the cider category, including traditional alcoholic cider and sophisticated non-alcoholic alternatives.

The company also intends to pursue licensing opportunities in the ready-to-drink beverage category, including premium spirit-, wine- and cider-based offerings as well as selected non-alcoholic products.

RTDs represent one of the strongest growth areas in today's U.S. beverage alcohol business. Premixed cocktails including spirits-based RTDs reached $3.8 billion in U.S. supplier sales in 2025, up 16.4%, even as overall spirits supplier revenues declined.

“Cider and RTDs both fit naturally within the Monet's Palate platform,” said Martin Pazzani, co-founder of the Monet's Palate Wine & Spirits Partnership. “Cider gives us extraordinary historical provenance through Le Pressoir. RTDs give us a contemporary format through which we can translate the Monet lifestyle - beautiful ingredients, French inspiration, gardens, fruit, food and entertaining - for today's consumer.”

The partnership's strategy is to build a coherent Monet's Palate^® lifestyle brand, using products whose ingredients, occasions, presentation and stories have a credible relationship to the world Monet created at Giverny.

Monet's Palate^® holds the exclusive United States Registered Trademark across wines and spirits and combines that intellectual property with an established massive audience and cultural credentials, including two books, Monet's Palate Cookbook and Everyday Monet, and the PBS documentary Monet's Palate: A Gastronomic View From the Gardens of Giverny, narrated by Meryl Streep. A 2019 proof-of-concept Monet's Palate^® wine release introduced approximately 50,000 bottles into selected U.S. markets.

“Our objective isn't to put the Monet's Palate name on everything,” Pazzani added. “It is exactly the opposite. We want to identify a small number of categories and exceptional partners where the product has a legitimate connection to Monet's world and where together we can create something distinctive and enduring.”

The timing coincides with the 100th anniversary of Claude Monet's death in 2026, as museums, cultural institutions and audiences around the world revisit the artist's extraordinary legacy. For Monet's Palate^®, the anniversary provides an opportunity to introduce consumers not simply to Monet's paintings, but to the lifestyle behind them - the gardens he created, the food he served, the people he entertained and the home at Giverny where he lived for more than four decades.

The Monet's Palate Wine & Spirits Partnership is actively seeking established cider producers and RTD beverage companies with premium production capabilities, strong distribution and an interest in a long-term licensing partnership.

Selected licensees will gain use of the Monet's Palate^® trademark in their category, an authentic brand story rooted in Giverny, and the founder's publishing, film and media platform to support launch and ongoing marketing. The partnership expects to conclude initial licensing agreements beginning in late 2026, with first products targeted for introduction during the Monet centennial period and beyond.

“The Monet's Palate lifestyle dovetails remarkably well with where consumers are headed,” Pazzani added. “Cider offers us an authentic connection to Giverny, while RTDs put us squarely into one of today's fastest-growing beverage categories. But we're equally optimistic about traditional wine. In fact, periods of softness are precisely when forward-thinking wine producers should be innovating and creating new brands that will drive the next cycle of growth.”

About Monet's Palate^®
Monet's Palate^® is a lifestyle brand founded by fine art photographer, PBS filmmaker and author Aileen Bordman, celebrating the gardens, table and art de vivre of Claude Monet at Giverny. The brand spans two books, Monet's Palate Cookbook and Everyday Monet, the PBS documentary Monet's Palate, narrated by Meryl Streep, and products including fragrances and candles. Bordman's late mother, Helen Rappel Bordman, was honored by the French government for her stewardship of Monet's home and gardens, continuing a Bordman family association with Giverny extending more than four decades.

About Martin Pazzani
A veteran wine and spirits executive whose career spans nearly five decades. Beginning at Heublein in 1979, he rose to the top marketing role in the company and led their portfolio of major international wine and spirits brands. He later co-founded luxury extra añejo tequila Tears of Llorona, named Beverage Testing Institute's Tequila of the Year in 2024 and 2026, and today is co-founder of award-winning Wisconsin-based Unbound Spirits Brands. He is a frequent speaker at American Distilling Institute and American Craft Spirits Association industry events.

Aileen Bordman
Monet's Palate Wine & Spirits Partnership
+1 860-375-0426
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