Motivated by an illustrative case study which assesses the strength of the New Zealand wine brand, we develop a framework that provides a contemporary perspective on Country of Origin (COO) branding. The New Zealand wine industry’s COO branding was initially built around the country image of “green” production with the logo “riches of a clean green land”. This has been superseded by a branding strategy that focuses on developing the collective meaning of the COO brand with the logo “pure discovery”. A collective approach to branding involves broader considerations, where the brand is used to facilitate processes that co-create experience and meaning that reflects collective interest. This entails the alignment of a complex set of industry relationships where value is co-created within a network of stakeholders that contribute to the heritage of New Zealand Wine and its quality positioning as the country-of-origin. Our contribution comes from a wider conceptual understanding of COO to show that “COO matters” when a shared identity and image are integrated to form a collective meaning which co-creates value to fulfil the expectations of a brand’s promises of innovation, authenticity and quality.