The Creation of The Golden Vines® Awards Trophy

**2022 - Ronan Keating and The 2022 Golden Vines® Awards Trophies**

It’s fitting that an Awards Ceremony celebrating the pinnacle of excellence in fine wine and rare spirits should have a suitably beautiful Trophy to match. The now iconic Champagne cork given to each of our Winners is a thing of exceptional quality and craftsmanship, and it’s no surprise that many hands and minds go into its creation. Made from oak cork, harvested from trees that are often centuries old, gilded with a thick gold cage, embellished by incredible artists and presented within a unique Gucci case of embossed leather, this is an object only those who are among ‘the best of the best’ get to own.

**2021 - Charles Lachaux of Domaine Arnoux Lachaux, the Winner of The 2021 Virgin Galactic Golden Vines® World’s Best Rising Star Award with The 2021 Golden Vines® Awards Trophy**

The genesis of the concept

The Trophy’s inception began with the first awards. “The big challenge was to create something instantly recognisable that embodied the values The Golden Vines® Awards represent, while implementing the distinctive vision of the artist. It was about giving shape and form to a dream, and initially seemed like an impossible task,” says Carlos De Jesus of Amorim Cork. Thankfully, alongside Shantell Martin, Grant MacDonald, Liquid Icons, and the local artists, his team of six were able to rise to the task.

“Initially we talked about a typical cylindrical stopper, but it lacked the elements of design and story we wanted the piece – and it is a true artistic piece – to embody. This is why we decided on the Champagne cork. Not only is it more interesting aesthetically, but go anywhere in the world and the sound of one being popped is instantly recognisable as a moment of joy and celebration. It’s about the anticipation of something wonderful, something exciting.”

– Carlos De Jesus, Amorim Cork

The cork also links back to the organic nature of wine itself. A cork oak can be up to two hundred years old, and must be at least twenty five years before it’s deemed ready for harvest. The forests themselves have protected status, and support a huge and diverse ecosystem. It’s a highly specialised job, done by hand by workers whose skills are often passed down generationally. It’s for this reason that cork harvesting remains one of the most highly paid jobs in agriculture. Like the best wine, it’s a system where product, commerce and environment exist in total balance, and each Trophy is a marriage between the inventiveness of nature and the expression of human creativity.

The Artist Brief: “Cork as a Canvas”

As ever, the cork is a canvas for the incredible artists who represent and interpret their region, and so the design of the Trophy has naturally evolved over time. Finding the right person to collaborate with is a difficult task, and can be many months in the deciding. “Once the Awards are announced and the festivities are over, we are already head-first ideating and thinking about the artist for the following year,” says Artistic Director Shantell Martin, who oversees the artistic process from her base in New York.

Initially, Shantell will work in collaboration with Liquid Icons, Amorim Cork and the team at Grant MacDonald to draw up a shortlist of potential artists who fit the bill, and can also help elevate and evolve the design.

“Usually, we are having a few internal discussions, thinking of how their work might translate. We also like to chat with them and see if their story and ethos align with the organization. There are a lot of moving parts, like location, medium and availability, and we want to see how the artist's work differs from the year before, so we’re always delivering something new, always upping the ante.”

– Shantell Martin

While the iconic shape of the Trophy itself remains largely unchanged, with such an instantly recognisable object there’s always scope for incredible creativity.

“We work with the same base every year – and we want to see how we can make each Trophy look different and feel unique while remaining true to its core. It is an opportunity to add a growing collection and allows the artist the opportunity to add their flair while adding to the legacy, and story of the charity and the awards. Each year, we want to explore what technologies are out there in the cork world to see how we can push boundaries and make each Trophy unique and fresh.”

– Carlos De Jesus, Amorim Cork

Each Trophy is individually created and precision cut using a state-of-the-art CNC machine, which allows for the unique shape and scale, but also gives the artist free reign to put their particular stamp on it, creating elaborate debossing which can be filled with colour and texture, creating a uniquely tactile object. In 2022, working alongside the incredibly dynamic Italian-Ethopian artist Red Longo (RED), colour was introduced for the first time, and in 2023 – in a nod to our Parisian host city and artist Jonathan Bréchignac, an artist whose work is rooted in the organic beauty and rich iridescent palette of minerals, this expanded further in a nod to France's tricolore. It also grew a little taller to better reflect the true shape of a Champagne stopper, as two layers of natural cork have been added at the bottom of each cork. The 2023 incarnation is an impressive object, weighing almost 3kg and measuring 28 centimetres tall.

As ever, the challenge for 2024 remains: how do we move further, be more creative, and deliver a Trophy worthy of our incredible winners. Equally, cork is an important part of Spain’s heritage, and so the Trophy takes on new significance as we move to Madrid in 2024. Much like our winners in the world of fine wine and rare spirits, The Golden Vines® Awards Trophy is a phenomenal object with a rich history and exciting future. The process to find our next artist is already underway. Watch this space for more news on their creation.

To learn more about The Golden Vines® Awards in Madrid, Spain, where this year’s world’s best fine wine makers will be awarded with their 2024 Golden Vines® Trophies, please visit https://liquidicons.com/work/golden-vines-awards

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