Our latest interview for the documentary took us to the technical side of winemaking. Elizabeth Clark didn’t set out be a winemaker. A lifelong wanderer with a background in Math and Russian, she’s almost surprised to have found herself in the wine industry since 2000. After working for a catering company in Oregon’s wine country, she [...]
Archives for category: The Wine Movie
By his own reckoning, Chris Czarnecki, executive chef at the Joel Palmer House in Dayton, Oregon, is “living the dream.” He can’t imagine anything else he’d rather do than head the kitchen in a fine dining restaurant surrounded by the local bounty of the Willamette Valley, not to mention some of the most noted pinot [...]
When talking to one of Oregon’s original wine growers, I learned something about the human pioneering spirit, namely that it never diminishes. Dick Erath started selling Oregon wine from a card table in his garage. Now he lives perched on a hill with a view of some of the most noted vineyards in the world, [...]
Spending a few days in Arizona wine country gave me the bug almost more than anywhere else I’ve been. They’re just starting out, just figuring out what works and what doesn’t, and it’s the closest thing I’ve seen to capturing that incipient, pioneering spirit that must have been present in the early days of Oregon. [...]
We’re excited that a clip from Vino Veritas is in this year’s Wine Spectator video contest. We’re hoping that folks following the project will take time to vote early and often until September 18th. We’re honored that they chose our piece and appreciate the interest in the project. You can vote here: http://www.winespectator.com/videovoting
A trip to Arizona wine country is full of contrasts. You climb out of a valley baking at 117 degrees, where massive dust storms swallow mountains, and you round a bend and see a sign welcoming you to Arizona wine country, rolling green pastures in all directions and nightly monsoons slipping over the mountains to [...]
Chef Jack Czarnecki knows a thing or two about truffles and mushrooms. He’s written books on the subject, including a James Beard award winner, and he also opened the Joel Palmer House in Dayton, Oregon, where he created a fungi-centric menu to complement the region’s famous Pinos. We had a chance to talk with Jack [...]
For some fascinating perspective on Oregon’s past, present and future, we turned to Lisa Shara Hall, a wine industry writer and a senior editor for Wine Business Monthly. On Saturday, Lisa shared thoughts on the challenges that new winemakers face as they enter the business in a saturated market during an economic downturn, and also [...]
The Albany Democrat Herald published an editorial about Vino Veritas. Great to see the local community getting more interested in the project. I’ve written before about how we seem to be in the midst of a golden age for documentary films, and part of the reason for that is how the technical and cost hurdles [...]
While we’re traveling the continent looking for wine folks with stories to tell as part of Vino Veritas, it’s easy to forget that we’re living in the middle of an up and coming, exciting wine region in the southern part of the Willamette Valley. Spindrift Cellars is less than three miles from our home base, [...]