Is this going to my head?!
It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that bling...doo wop, doo wop
A hen’s egg is, quite simply, a work of art, a masterpiece of design and construction with, it has to be said, brilliant packaging! - Steve Jobs
Please Vote in the Pack Design Awards - People’s Choice
Apropos (in admittedly the most insignificant way!) of the Olympic Games unfolding this week in Paris, is the custom of awarding ability, performance and quality with a medal struck in metal of corresponding value commiserate with the level of excellence attained, i.e. bronze for third best, silver for second best and gold for those who reign supreme. Okay, so maybe not real gold or silver. but something of that color.
Never mind the obvious, that witnessing the perfect execution of a triple double on floor ex, a Yurchenko double pike on the vault, or a double-twisting, double-backflip on the beam is surely affidavit enough of the incomprehensible talent of Simone Biles. Hanging yet another medal on her, bestowed by a panel of self-aggrandizing judges seems terribly redundant, almost superficial. I think Simone should be coronated and ascend into heaven. That’s what her mastery means to me! She certainly doesn’t need another “not really gold” medal to confirm her standing.
Wine is like that—some rare vintages perhaps as extraordinary and singular as even Simone (oh come on!). But, whether you like it or not, the subjective distillation of how well a person performs, or a product works, or yes, even how good a certain food — or wine— tastes, is how we measure things. And awarding it points or stars or trophies or medals is how the powers-that-be reassure the general public that something has transcended mediocrity.
As if we can’t see that for ourselves.
With wine it’s points and medals, the higher the number (it’s gotta be 90 or more) and the shinier the medal metal (silver is good, gold is better), the more the buying public responds with their wallets. And then there’s that third element of packaging. We’ve all heard folks proclaim, “I buy wine based on the label.” But how many of us have done the same? Uh huh.
Look, I get it. In a perfect world wine should be judged solely on how sustainably it was made and what it tastes like to YOU, not by the personal whims of some wine “professional” tasting at a prestigious (did I mean pretentious?) wine competition. And if it can be purchased and poured from some type of recycled and further recyclable vessel made and delivered with minimal carbon footprint and fully transparent labeling of vineyard information, winemaking style, and every ingredient and addition.
But that’s just not how wine is discovered. Sure, organic certification and limited intervention in the winemaking have become catchwords, but the average wine buyer is still definitely swayed by those little point-of-purchase tags on the shelf that tout points awarded and medals won. And an original, appealing label is perhaps the singular most powerful incentivizer in the wine shop.
All this to say, while we are exploring every way to make our wine more sustainable, we still entered a handful of commercial wine competitions this past year with our first commercial wines because we want to win any affirmation that will help get our wines into the marketplace and discovered by more people. I humbly—as best as I am able!—and happily report that we won a boatload of medals for wine quality, and we hope that bling will attract lots of new folks to the Tiny Vineyards family.
But we also won two gold medals, along with the 2024 Wine Industry Network Wine Marketing Award for Packaging Design for two of our labels. In particular, our Eclipse Malbec label, which became the darling of hundreds of new buyers. And it has now made it to the finals of the 2024 Wine Business Monthly Design Pack Awards which strives to choose the most outstanding wine packages on the market. YOU CAN HELP US WIN BY VOTING IN THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD.
Just click HERE
You’ll be directed to the competition voting page. Click on Vote People’s Choice at the top of the page. Our Eclipse Malbec is the ninth wine displayed in the first row under Classic Format. Use the little circles just under the bottles or the arrow at the far right of the bottles to navigate to the second page where you’ll find us.
Click on our Eclipse Malbec bottle and you’ll be directed to our entry page where you can read about us AND PLACE YOUR VOTE! Click on the bottle image twice to see an ultra high-res version of our label. It’s amazing! Many of you will already be readers of Wine Business Monthly because it’s the best compilation of what’s going on in the wine industry. If you’re not it will ask you to create an account, which is FREE and super quick and easy to do. You can cancel it at any time but I’m guessing you might get hooked on the unique news it delivers. In any event, PLEASE VOTE NOW, VOTING ENDS ON FRIDAY!
And, as always, please visit tinyvineyards.com to stay stocked up with all our 2021 and 2022 wines. We’re just about to enter the dog days of summer and if you don’t have a few bottles of our Rosé of Zinfandel or our Chardonnay hiding in the bottom of the fridge I honestly don’t know how you’re going to make it!