Grape expectations – celebrating wine making throughout our Maltese islands.

By John

At Keen Ltd, we often plan innovative and ambitious campaigns and events which are industry firsts, celebrating Maltese expertise. This was the case when The Ministry of Sustainability, Development, Environment and Climate Change tasked us with managing a unique new launch event to promote Maltese wine-making. The Ministry wanted to launch a public education campaign to support and showcase the diverse range of quality wines produced throughout the Maltese islands; to increase public awareness of the high calibre wines cultivated locally. Keen created the campaign name ‘Wines of Distinction’ and organized all the promotion around Maltese excellence in wine-making, culminating with a large-scale public wine appreciation event.

IGT and DOK classified wines. Photo credit: CVC media

10 years ago, Malta introduced the wine quality scheme which is linked to the EU system for quality wines, letting vintners and local wine producers flag certified wines either as DOK or IGT wines according to EU and local regulations.  These DOK Malta, DOK Gozo, and IGT Maltese Islands wines have a ribbon-like banner flanking the wine bottle showing the emblem of The Ministry and a unique serial number. This effectively acts as guarantee for consumers, proving the wine is certified by the Directorate of Agriculture.

This ‘Wines of Distinction’ campaign celebrated Maltese wine making and cultivation; promoting local vintners’ expertise, the quality of our soil, the superb grape varieties grown here and also the expertise of each of the 11 wineries throughout Malta and Gozo. Maltese and Gozitan wines are winning high praise in overseas wine-markets, yet many locals didn’t understand the DOK Malta, DOK Gozo and IGT classifications on wine bottles.

It was the first time the 11 different wineries (who are essentially business competitors) had united together to demonstrate excellence within their industry. Our teams at Keen Ltd, worked closely with The Ministry to co-ordinate this first of its kind large-scale public wine appreciation event. The event, held at Malta’s Western Dragonara Hotel in St.Julian’s let the public sample the DOK and IGT wines, meet the sommeliers and talk to vintners, sharing their knowledge of growing the vine.

Wines of Distinction – Public Wine Appreciation Event. Photo Credit: CVC Media
‘Wines of Distinction’ – Public Wine Appreciation Event. Photo credit: CVC Media

Keen’s event planners and graphic designers worked together to create all the ‘Wines of Distinction’ event designs and individual promotional material for the wineries. As each winery had its own stand with an illuminated backdrop, highlighting their unique features and statistics.

Winery stand at ‘Wines of Distinction’ event. Photo credit: CVC Media

Our digital marketing team created social media ads and leading news portal banners, promoting the event. We created and targeted Facebook and Google ads which linked directly to a safe, secure payment site where the public could purchase their tickets directly.

Wines of Distinction billboard image

Keen managed all pre-publicity for the wine appreciation event; designing invites and billboard ads. As you can see from the video and photos, the public wine-tasting event was a huge-success and was well-attended by the public and government officials. The campaign was a great learning curve for the wineries, an eye opener as to what can be achieved when you collectively work together.

As part of the overall ‘Wines of Distinction’ campaign, we originated news articles interviewing vintners and celebrating their passion for vine growing. These articles featured in: Delicious magazineGourmet TodaySunday CircleServed and Taste and Flair.

Contact us at Keen today, to discover how we can add that extra sparkle to your next industry event.