Liquid Icons
Creative Direction · Creative Strategy · Content Production
£10,000 a ticket.
The creative had to earn it.
Liquid Icons' Golden Vines Awards is often described as the Oscars of fine wine. An experience unlike any other to honour, celebrate and recognise ‘the best of the best’ in the world of fine wine and rare spirits. I worked as their creative partner across two editions, in Florence and Paris not just directing the films, but shaping the brand's creative output from film, print, digital, environmental design, and social.
Every piece of work was built around the same standard: make it feel like a shame to have been missed.
The Brief
At roughly £3 million in annual ticket revenue across 300 guests, the films weren't a nice-to-have. They were a core piece of the commercial machine establishing the brand, elevating its perception, and working across multiple touchpoints simultaneously: seeded in email campaigns to prospects, embedded on the ticket sales website, used in investor decks, and shared across social.
But the brief extended well beyond the films. As creative partner, I was responsible for the delivery of a visual identity across print advertising for trade and luxury publications, editorial and magazine design for the official event publication, step and repeats and large-format interior backdrops shaping the physical event spaces, digital assets across the website and email campaigns, social media management and content direction, and the annual creative development of the Golden Vines logo for the year in partnership with artists of the year.
The audience was ultra-high-net-worth individuals, reached largely through strategic partnerships and luxury concierge services rather than mass marketing. Which meant every piece of work not just the films had one job above all others: be good enough to do the convincing on its own, in a room with no second chances.
I didn't want event recaps. I didn't want highlight reels. I wanted something that felt epic enough to create genuine desire, films so rich that watching them made you want to be in them. And collateral considered enough that nothing felt like the budget version of the idea.
Format: Video (seeded across social media and website) · Views: 199,545 · No ad spend
The Golden Vines Awards' second edition found its home in Florence specifically inside the Palazzo Vecchio, one of the most significant civic buildings in Italian history, its halls carrying the weight of centuries of Florentine power and culture. The setting demanded a film that matched it: unhurried, considered, steeped in the quiet grandeur of old-world prestige.
Every cut needed to be earned rather than forced in a deliberate creative choice to honour both the scale of the venue and the calibre of the experience being sold. A £10,000 ticket to an event held inside the Palazzo Vecchio doesn't need to be sold loudly, it is extraordinary enough to speak for itself.
Paris
Paris demanded something entirely different. Staged across multiple venues with the flagship event at the Palais Garnier, a visually extraordinary space, the brief shifted toward cabaret chic and velvet decadence. An elevated circus, theatrical and playful, with interactive performances woven through every moment of the night.
The film held more drama in its character. More dynamic, more animated, almost mystical in its movement and pacing.
Same brief. Same ambition. Two entirely different creative languages, each one built to match the personality of its city.
The Golden Vines Awards
Florence
Brand films
Producing films at this scale meant running a production operation across multiple venues and events over the course of the multiple experiences offered over a span of three days.
Up to four videographers managed per event, working across flagship moments and parallel events throughout each day, alongside external live-coverage crews delivering additional footage for post-production. Every crew member had to be briefed, directed in spirit if not always in person, and all footage assembled into a single coherent creative vision in the edit.
Among those captured on camera across both editions: Massimo Bottura, Kylie Minogue, Cat Burns, Ronan and Storm Keating, Celeste, Alain Ducasse alongside the masterchefs, winemakers, and industry figures who define the worlds of fine wine, gastronomy, and entertainment.
On The Ground
ProductionBeyond the films
The films were the centrepiece, but the relationship went further.
Print advertising for trade and luxury publications. Editorial and magazine design for the official event publication. Step and repeats and large-format interior backdrops shaping the physical event spaces. Digital assets across the website and email campaigns. Social media management and content direction.
Every piece of collateral, across every format, held the same standard as the films: nothing that felt like the budget version of the idea.
Logo development across the many phases of the trophy design
Golden Vines' equivalent of the Oscar statuette isn't a statuette at all, it's a large-scale champagne cork, topped with engraved gold, unique to each winning category.
Each year, a new artist is commissioned to create the body of work engraved onto it. My responsibility was to take every year's artwork and reimagine it as the year's official Golden Vines logo and digital brand print.
A new artist, a new pattern, a new identity, every year. The same standard each time: a mark considered enough to sit alongside the object it represents, not just printed beside it.
Brand Identity
DesignThe Feed
The Results
-
![]()
£10,000 starting ticket price
The benchmark every piece of creative had to justify.
-
![]()
£3M+ in annual ticket revenue supported
The commercial weight behind every creative decision.
-
![]()
Over 300 tickets sold annually
Sold without a single piece of paid advertising.
-
![]()
2 cities · 2 creative directions · 1 brand
Grace in Florence. Drama in Paris. Same ambition throughout.
From producing films to digital media for the website, email campaigns, social, and investor decks, the partnership became a core piece of how Liquid Icons sold an experience most people would never otherwise see, to an audience that had seen everything.
Creative Direction · Production Management · Film Direction · Print & Editorial Design · Environmental & Event Design · Trophy Design · Digital Design · Social Media Management
The best work here came from knowing the brand well enough to push it, not just service it. If you're looking for that kind of creative partner, let's talk contact@adagio.film or WhatsApp me!