[Powers of Ten]
Thinking About Wine Video

This remarkable short film was made by the Eameses in 1977. You've probably seen it in school or at a museum. It starts at a picnic, goes to the edge of the universe, then back to the picnic, into an atom in a man's hand, all in one shot. Every ten seconds, it is ten times further away.

Created by Eames Demetrios, filmmaker and grandson of Charles and Ray Eames, [Powers of Ten] Thinking About Wine celebrates the collaboration with Penfolds and to add another dimension to Powers of Ten Day (10/10/10). It was filmed on location at Penfolds in South Australia during the 2010 vintage.

Watch the video

Assembling your wine rack

So now you know the lay of the land, the ideas and force at play in this special commemorative experience. What comes next?

Flanking your precious magnum of Bin 389 are 34 cards. Put your magnum in a safe place (your cellar or equivalent) - this wine rack is not designed to hold your magnum; you are about to use the wooden box as the base of a tower. You can build it any way you want-you'll soon see how it works.

For the bottom section you must start with our instructions which allow the first levels of the tower to serve as a wine rack for five 750 ml bottles.

If you don't follow our instructions, the rack may not be properly secured and may not hold your bottles of wine safely.

Take out the cards and sort them. An index of cards can be downloaded here.

Download the PDF

Penfolds and the Eames Office recreate the Powers of Ten for Wine

How did it come about?Wine Rack

With wine, no two years are the same. Each harvest sets the table, but the winemakers' wisdom and experience ultimately guides the vintage into your glass. Some years are like a wrestling match; however, in other years (the exceptional ones), everything comes together, not necessarily with ease - for there is always struggle and effort of the best kind - but still the elements align to make a great vintage. Peter Gago and his team of winemakers at Penfolds, realizing that the 2007 vintage of Bin 389 would be a great year, wanted to create something special to celebrate it. So they began to look at what other works of magic had aged well and meant more with the passage of time.

Good design has that quality as well and that led them to the work of Charles and Ray Eames, including their landmark Eames House, and, of course, the Eames film Powers of Ten. And, as it happens, 10/10/10 is when we will celebrate Powers of Ten Day this year, and so a logical and embracing connection emerged.

That led to a conversation about process, celebration and, especially, scale, which in turn became a remarkable exploration-- and the results are before you.

Working with Penfolds, we've created something that we hope will be a construction, a joy, a wine rack (for five bottles), a conversation piece, and above all a prism through which to consider the seemingly infinite world of good wine. You're going to have to give a bit of yourself too - your time and attention, but since you appreciate great wine, this will be familiar ground to you. Furthermore, you are going to have to build this yourself—which is fitting given the nature of the Eames House, an assemblage of pre-fabricated parts.

We were inspired by the soil, by the vistas, by the good people of Penfolds, and of course, by the wine. We looked at the wine process from many orders of magnitude to give a new insight into the primal topic of wine. Call it the terroir of scale.

We hope you enjoy the Penfolds Tenfold experience as much as we enjoyed creating it for you.

Eames Demetrios
Director, Eames Office

Stockists

Penfolds Tenfold is available through Penfolds' cellar doors and in selected retailers across the world. For further details about stockists where you are, please contact us through this website, or via phone:

  • In Australia 1300 651 650
  • In New Zealand 0800 651 650
  • In the United Kingdom 020 8843 8400
  • In the USA or Canada 1 800 255 9966
Enjoy Responsibly