Grassroots media campaign catches the attention of newspapers and television stations across the country
[Sonoma, CA, March 28, 2024] Wine has long been used to commemorate major celestial events, like the upcoming total solar eclipse crossing the country from Texas to Maine this upcoming April 8th.
“In the case of a total eclipse I think it’s as much about celebrating the fact that the sun came back and the world didn’t end,” laughed Sonoma filmmaker turned winemaker Joseph Daniel. “Wine is the perfect beverage to toast the extremely beautiful but admittedly alarming spectacle of the moon turning day into night, and then hopefully back into day again!”
Daniel, a 5-time veteran eclipse chaser with “shadow time” in the U.S., Mexico, Africa, and Argentina, first discovered the wine/eclipse connection while filming the 2017 Great American Eclipse in Oregon.
“We stayed at this wonderful little winery that had really committed to celebrating the eclipse with a 24-hour party of great food and wine, live music, singing and dancing.” Daniel recalled. “And they released an estate Pinot Noir with a graphic rendering of the total eclipse on the label. The wine was delicious–they must have gone through hundreds of cases–but that bottle with the eclipse label was fantastic. It was the perfect souvenir of the event, and I still have it today.”
The following year Daniel would begin his own personal indoctrination into the world of wine when he relocated from Boulder, Colorado to Sonoma, California to make a feature-length documentary film about the rich sub-culture of home winemaking there. The movie, called Tiny Vineyards, was a hit, playing to sold-out audiences and winning awards at film festivals across the country.
“When I started making the film in 2018, I actually knew nothing about wine other than I liked to drink it. But in the act of following a dozen different home winemakers and backyard grape growers through an entire year of their hobby, I was completely smitten by the winemaking bug.”
Daniel made his first home vintage the same year he made the Tiny Vineyards film, but it would take four seasons of working with master winemakers and reacquainting himself with college-level chemistry to earn an advanced Winemaking Certificate from UC Davis. Then he had to successfully navigate all the legal requirements to qualify for an official Winegrowers License. By 2021 he was fully bonded and licensed as a commercial winemaker. He formed The Tiny Vineyards Wine Company (tinyvineyards.com) and began working as an alternating proprietor out of Magnolia Wine Services in Sonoma.
Leading up to all of this was more eclipse chasing and wine exploration. In 2019 Daniel decided to travel to Mendoza, Argentina for the next total solar eclipse. As fortune would have it, Mendoza is also considered the epicenter of Daniel’s favorite wine, Malbec. A full-bodied red wine that originated in France as a blending grape in Bordeaux, Malbec now grows mainly in Argentina as a varietal. It has a deep purple color, dark fruit flavors and a smoky finish. It can be very aromatic and powerful, but smooth and velvety on the tongue. Some winemakers in Argentina call it the “velvet glove”–all power with softness. Hoping to learn some tricks in Argentina for making Malbec in California, Daniel visited several of the top wineries in and around Mendoza. Then he headed north for the eclipse.
Daniel filmed and photographed the event from a high, windswept plateau at the foot of the Andes near the tiny town of Bella Vista. Hundreds of people–perhaps thousands–had gathered there, having collectively come to the same conclusion that it might offer the best chance for clear skies and dramatic scenery. It didn’t hurt that the Argentine government had also picked the site for the same reasons, and had arranged for public bus service from surrounding towns and a large outdoor jumbotron screen on which it broadcast a live feed of the eclipse shot through a powerful telescope by professional astronomers.
“With the government’s involvement it became a big party,” said Daniel, “a crazy scene with loud tango music and vendors selling asado (Argentine barbecue) and cups of wine. And like the eclipse we witnessed in Oregon, it was really great to be around a lot of people and experience it together. It’s especially powerful just to listen to the unbridled emotion of folks seeing a total eclipse for the first time. There’s a collective gasp of ‘oh my God!’ as the sun disappears, followed by lots of excited cheering and laughter–maybe even a little nervous crying–and finally growing applause as the sun peeks out again.”
Through it all Daniel had to try hard to keep his composure, and focus on the multiple cameras he was tending, firing shots every few seconds for a time-lapse image while removing then reapplying filters, making sure with the telephoto shots that the sun stayed in his frame as the earth rotated, and zooming in for video close-ups.
“It became a conflicting exercise in multitasking while trying to watch the most beautiful and spectacular natural phenomenon you’ve ever seen,” Daniel lamented. “I think I’m just going to bring one video camera and one still camera for the April 8th eclipse, set them up, and then sit back and enjoy the show.”
However challenging it may have been, Daniel ended up shooting one of the best total eclipse photographs he’d ever made–a remarkable time-lapse composite image of the sun descending through partial eclipse stages into totality and then back out through partiality before disappearing behind the Andes at sunset. The photograph was so striking that it ended up on the label of an Eclipse Malbec Daniel made in 2021 (with those tips he learned in Argentina!) and just released this year to commemorate the upcoming April 8th eclipse.
“It is so exciting for me to combine several of the things I truly love–total eclipses, photography, and winemaking–into something delicious, beautiful, collectible and geographically significant for a once-in-a-lifetime kind of event,” said Daniel nostalgically. “That all feels very worthwhile today.”
As a very discerning, hands-on winemaker Daniel and his Tiny Vineyards Wine Company produced just 78 cases of the 2021 Eclipse Malbec. To bring the wine to market he launched an “old-fashioned, grassroots marketing campaign, where I identified every newspaper in every town along the eclipse’s path of totality and I sent them photos of my Eclipse Malbec with the cool eclipse label, pics of me making it, and a pre-written story about the wine that they were free to edit and use any way they liked,” Daniel explained. That resulted in newspaper articles being published in a dozen or so towns, a national article in Forbes Magazine, and a small TV spot that somehow got picked up by NBC and sent to affiliates around the country.
“Needless to say, sales have been pretty brisk for the past two weeks,” Daniel confirmed. “If it keeps up like this we’ll probably sell out of the wine by the day of the eclipse.” Daniel’s Eclipse Malbec is only available direct from tinyvineyards.com on a first come basis, with special discounts and free shipping for larger orders. “There’s still plenty of time to order the wine for the eclipse if you do it right away. And if you live in or very near Sonoma, I’ll even hand deliver your order to save you any shipping fee and speed up your delivery!”
About Tiny Vineyards Wine Company
The concept is simple yet profound. Exceptional wines come from exceptional grapes, and the best are often discovered in small, private vineyards that have been lovingly tended by hand using natural, sustainable methods. The Tiny Vineyards Wine Company is a boutique winery in Sonoma, California specializing in ultra-premium wines that are all handcrafted from such grapes.
