Blend of the month at Meridiana

You've made a blend of your own and let it age in the cellar. Now it can compete. Part six brings a wine blend competition game to Meridiana: every month, players enter what they've made, everyone votes blind, and the winner goes on the estate's shelf with its maker's name on it.

Enter your blend

In the cellar, under your ageing bottles, you'll find this month's competition and Clara's brief for it. Until the 25th, enter one blend you've aged: not one you bottled straight away, and not one that's been reported. One entry each a month, and it's free.

Vote blind

From the 26th to the end of the month, the competition turns to voting. You don't see names or labels, only numbered cards, shuffled into an order of your own: each blend's colour, and its taste in words (fruity or subtle, light or full-bodied, a touch of spice, fresh or soft). Pick the one you'd most like to drink. Once you've voted, the cards show their taste in numbers. You get one vote, and never for your own.

Votes come from players who've been around for at least three days and did a tasting at Meridiana that month, so nobody can fill the box with new or idle accounts. Every vote counts the same.

How it's judged

Seventy per cent of the score is Clara's. Most of it is how close each blend tastes to the month's brief, but she also has a favourite grape each month, and she keeps it to herself, so matching the brief alone never gets full marks. The other thirty per cent is the votes. If two blends tie, Clara's score decides, then whoever entered first.

The winner goes on the shelf

When the month turns, the winning blend goes on sale in Meridiana's shop for the whole of the next month, at €9, with a trophy and its maker's name. Every time someone else buys a bottle with euros they earned in the game, its maker earns €1, up to €300 a month, paid as money they've earned (bought euros earn its maker nothing). Buying your own doesn't count. If three players report a winning blend's name or label, it comes off the shelf until a moderator looks at it; a moderator who disqualifies it gives the shelf to the runner-up.

How a month goes

• From the 1st: last month's winner goes on the shelf, and this month's brief appears in the cellar. Blend something with it in mind, or just make what you like and age it.
• Until the 25th: enter one aged blend. You can still open it later; your entry stays in.
• From the 26th: vote blind. Come back a few times, because new entries can't appear after the 25th, but other players keep voting till the last day.
• On the 1st again: the winner is picked, its bottles go on sale, and the whole thing starts over.

Your entry, your votes and anything you earned from a win are in your account's data, like everything else you do in the game.

Three more stamps

Entering the competition, casting a blind vote and winning the month each give a stamp for your passport.

Questions people ask

Can I enter a blend that's still ageing?

Yes. It just needs to be one you aged, not one you bottled straight away.

Why can't I see the names when I vote?

So you vote for the wine, not your friends. The names come out with the winner.

What if nobody enters?

Then there's no winner that month, and the shelf keeps the estate's own bottles.

Who decides the brief?

Clara does. Meridiana Wine Estate is a real winery at Ta' Qali; the competition is the game's own.

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