Tad Seestedt of Ransom Wines & Spirits was told that he was crazy when he talked of leaving New York City and heading to Oregon without knowing a soul, with a vague notion of returning to an agricultural lifestyle in the wine industry. But after three years of planning, he headed west in 1993, and [...]
Archives for category: The Wine Movie
We recently spoke with wine writer Katherine Cole to help us frame some of the larger themes in our current documentary project. She took some time away from her current book project to meet us at the Southeast Wine Collective, an urban winery that fosters some up-and-coming winemakers in an urban space that borders the [...]
We’re trying to cover as much of harvest this year as possible, with shoots at Rex Hill, Cardwell Hill, Brooks Winery and more. The weather’s been great this season, though the rains have started and winemakers are eyeing the weather. It’s an exciting time of year to be in the vineyard and on the crush [...]
Like any good suburban neighbors hatching a scheme over beers and barbecue, Thomas Jefferson hatched a scheme with Filippo Mazzei, an Italian patriot living on the next hill over from Monticello. Mazzei was an Italian patriot from a well-known wine family. They decided that they’d form a company to produce fine, European style wines on [...]
For the next set of interviews for Vino Veritas, we traveled east, to Virginia, to learn a little about the birth of the wine industry in America. Most think of the West Coast as the original home to American wine, but in truth early colonists were required to plant vinifera, and Thomas Jefferson even was [...]
Back in February we captured a fantastic pair of interviews from different vantage points on the wine industry. So far we’ve been mainly talking to winery owners, growers and winemakers, but the oenological universe is much bigger. We stopped at Cork, an innovative bottle shop on Portland’s trendy Alberta Street where we talked with owner Darryl Jonnides [...]
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 [...]
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 Oregons 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, evidence of an industry that he helped to build.
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
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 drop curtains of rain on vineyards, delaying the harvest.
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 [...]