We're currently in production with Vino Veritas, a feature documentary

Airlie vineyards at sunset

A Country Wedding is our first narrative short

Scene from a country wedding

Vintage is a narrative feature film in preproduction

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Our backers are sending us to Colorado

July 18, 2011 //
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We recently concluded a Kickstarter campaign that netted us 24 backers and raised a total of $1,261. That may not seem like much, but for indie filmmakers living paycheck to paycheck, it means we’ll be able to travel and capture another wine region that we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to reach.

Maybe it’s a gimmick, or maybe it’s truly part of the spirit of this wired age where we can connect with our audience and actually allow the into the filmmaking process, but we gave them the decision of where we’d film this year’s harvest. They were able to choose between three up and coming wine regions: Okanagan Valley, BC, Monticello AVA, VA, and Colorado’s Grand Mesa.

And the winner is…

Colorado. Based on our weighted system, Colorado edged out BC in a 36-30-4 score. The $1,261 that we raised will all go toward funding the travel expenses needed to bring our crew to the world’s largest mesa, which also features the planet’s highest commercially viable wine growing region.

So thanks to all of our backers for steering our film in two ways: sharing your resources and telling us what we should do with them.

We’re looking forward to sharing the results of a fascinating exploration of this new vinifera growing region, and we’re excited that our film will be able to take on more of a national scope.

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Categories fund raising

Vino Veritas in the news

July 12, 2011 //
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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 have steadily dropped. (This year’s edition of the daVinci Days Film Festival, coming up next weekend, offers additional evidence, with a menu of provocative documentaries.)

But, even though the equipment has changed, some essentials remain: You still need to be able to sniff out good stories — and then figure out the best way to tell them. “Vino Veritas” looks to be on the right track, but — like some vintages — we won’t know for sure until it’s time to uncork it.

Read the whole article.
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Categories fund raising, The Wine Movie

Hyperlocal – Spindrift Cellars

June 6, 2011 //
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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, and they feature a full range of the classic WV wines, including Riesling, Gewurtz, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc and of course Pinot Noir.

We’ve been hitting Twitter and our other social networks harder lately because of our fundraising campaign, and as a result, Matt Compton, who co-owns Spindrift with his wife Tabitha, noticed the chatter and invited us to an industry tasting to try their lineup.

Spindrift Cellars

I’m a filmmaker, not a wine writer, so I’m not used writing tasting notes. But I have to say the ’08 reserve Pinot is a steal. The ’10 Pinot Gris stood out. I liked the Gewurtz from 30 year old vines, and they offered an interesting Rose made from Pinot Noir that had a twist on a blush wine…it had bright acidity like a typical WV white. I guess I’ve been learning a few things about vino since starting this project. Or at least I know what I like, and Spindrift offers enough range at great prices to make this corner of the Valley worth a visit.

Matt got his start managing vineyards and worked throughout this section of the WV before striking out on his own, and they now produce around 4,000 cases. Sometimes you don’t have to look far for wine stories, and I’m sure we’ll be touring some of Matt’s vineyards down the road.

l should also note that I ran into Claire Cady of the Oregon Wine Blog, which is in the midst of being rebranded as “WestToast,” to cover an expanded range of topics in food and wine in the Northwest.

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Categories behind the scenes, indie films, The Wine Movie

New Kickstarter campaign launched

June 1, 2011 //
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We’ve launched a new Kickstarter campaign. We didn’t make our goal last fall, but that didn’t deter us. Since that time we’ve filmed dozens of interviews in three states, and we’d like to expand the reach farther. You can help us by pledging to our campaign by July 4th. If we make our goal, you can vote for the region we visit next.

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Categories fund raising, indie films, Marketing, The Wine Movie

The Godfathers of Indie Wine Media

May 18, 2011 //
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When it comes to independent coverage of the world’s most captivating beverage, nobody has been doing it better, longer, and with as much enthusiasm as the guys from Grape Radio. They’ve been podcasting since it first came out, recording interviews and videos with sommeliers, wine writers, vignerons from around the world and just about every rockstar winemaker in the business.

Jay Selman, Eric Anderson and Rusty Gaffney

We spent a few days with Jay Selman, Rusty Gaffney, Eric Anderson and Brian Clark as they shared the inside scoop on the origins of the show, the “epiphany bottles” that turned them into lifelong connoisseurs, and some of their favorite moments during the course of interviewing nearly five hundred of the most noted personalities in the wine industry.

We filmed the recording of one of their shows in their Orange County studio and followed Jay as he prepped for an interview with guest Chad Kearns of Giracci Vineyards, a winemaker who recently opened a tasting room in the canyons southeast of Los Angeles. We toured Chad’s newly planted Granache and Mourvedre vineyards on his 10 acre wine and horse farm and then sat in the studio for the interview on the following day.

Chad Kearnes of Giracci Vineyards

We collected 250 gigabytes of footage, photos and audio, heard tales of wine adventures that would have made Miles from Sideways proud, and shared a few bottles of some fantastic wine during the course of capturing another side of the American wine landscape: enthusiasts with encyclopedic knowledge who use the latest technology to share their passion with thousands of fans around the world.

Jay Selman

The indie wine media universe grows more cluttered by the day, with new blogs, podcasts and Twitter feeds popping up everywhere you look. We even have to add our own project to the mix. But the Grape Radio crew continues to outpace the field, recently winning their second James Beard Award. Once we’ve sifted through the footage we hope to show what drives them to continue to share their enthusiasm for wine and get their insight on what wine means to our culture, what’s the definition of the term wine geek, the tendency of wines to share the personality of the person who made them, and what makes this drink such a significant part of life and culture.

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Categories behind the scenes, indie films, The Wine Movie

Making wine the Wright way

May 3, 2011 //
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The right way to make wine for Scott Paul Wright is through the gentle handling of Pinot Noir grapes and minimalist intervention. This includes avoiding some of the modern techniques like killing the wild yeast and using lab cultures, extended maceration, cold soaks and additions and subtractions of acids and enzymes.

You’d think that this traditionalist and Burgundy aficionado would be a winemaker who arrived at his particular mature and minimalist style after a long and storied career in the wine business, but for Scott, wine is his second calling. For the past ten years he’s been perfecting the craft of making Oregon Pinot in a French style, but prior to that he was hanging out with the Beatles and planning marketing strategies for Ozzy Osbourne.

Scott was once the most listened-to radio personality as a rock DJ and later a recording industry executive. The story of his transition and transformation into a hands-on winery owner is a fascinating tale of revelation, relocation and giant rabbits.

We had a fantastic interview and were able to learn the inside story that carried him from the LA airwaves to the Willamette Valley. Winemakers everywhere are storytellers, and Scott is no exception. We’re looking forward to integrating the footage from his gorgeous refurbished granary winery in the sleepy town of Carlton, Oregon.

It’s so nice to be back to some of our home wine turf after an interview with the Great Plains winegrower Michael Amigoni and then a whirlwind tour of Sonoma County. The rainy side of the Cascades is begrudgingly making way for some sunshine, and we’re looking forward to spending a lot of time in our local vineyards this season capturing footage on our trusty Canons.

But up next is a trip down to southern Cal for a chat with the godfathers if indie wine media over at Grape Radio. And we’ve got some more surprise visits coming together. Should be a productive second year of filming for Vino Veritas.

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Categories behind the scenes, The Wine Movie

Sonoma Trip: Take 2

April 12, 2011 //
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Here’s a different cut of our experiences on our recent foray into Northern California wine country. We visited Sonoma and interviewed folks at three different wineries. We decided to each edit our own take on the trip. Kegan rolled his behind the scenes piece out a couple weeks ago. Here’s another version.


The sound is a bit rough as it’s just the safety tracks from the cameras, either onboard mics or a Rode shotgun right into the camera. We shot on Canon 7Ds and a 60D, with film sound going into a Zoom H4N

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Categories behind the scenes, The Wine Movie

Subtitles en français

April 11, 2011 //
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Through the help of a friend we created French subtitles for our first teaser. Through our social networks we’ve already received a inquiries and interest from folks in France and Spain, and we hope to build as wide an audience as possible for a project in which we try to capture what’s unique about the American wine industry. On the world stage, we’re hardly the major player. We’re well behind Spain as #4 in production and we’re way down on the list for per capital consumption. Since France is at the top of both of these lists, we’re guessing there might be a few folks over there interested in this project.

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Categories The Wine Movie

Sonoma Summary

April 3, 2011 //
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Kegan was the first out of the gates with a summary of our trip to Sonoma wine country. Here’s his take on our adventures as we took the long way down to talk to some fascinating wine people. Just for kicks we’ll be offering different edits from members of the crew.

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Categories The Wine Movie

Sonoma Road Trip

March 24, 2011 //
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We drove nearly 1,500 miles in 4 days to acquaint ourselves with Sonoma wine country and interview our first group of winemakers in California. Despite starting off rough (late start, hail, snow, standstill traffic, rain) conditions improved so that by Sunday afternoon the sun came out and we were able to enjoy fascinating stories, hospitality and even managed to wrangle an invitation to a wine-chili pairing party.

Alan Baker and Serena Laurie

We started off interviewing Alan Baker and Serena Lourie, who are christening their brand new tasting room and launching their Cartograph label. Alan began his journey into the wine business in 2005 as he launched his famous Cellar Rat podcast on Alt NPR, documenting his move from Minnesota to Healdsburg to pursue a life in wine. They’re partnering with Christian Stark, who’s been making Syrah since 2003 and is now expanding his offerings. A former musician, Christian is a self-taught winemaker who gained an appreciation for wine in culinary school. He now balances his winemaking with the challenges of raising a young family.

Christian Stark

Mike and Kendall Officer of Carlisle Winery are not big fans of marketing and self-promotion. But that doesn’t mean they’re not storytellers. They’ve made an incredible journey that included long stints of commuting daily from a Sonoma farmhouse to San Francisco as they launched their business, and years operating on four hours of sleep. But now they’ve developed a loyal following, especially for their old vine zinfandel. Their vineyard, planted in the ’20s, features vines that reach up from the ground like gnarled hands. Mike and Kendall are so passionate about California’s heritage vineyards, that they’re active in the Historic Vineyard Society.

Mike and Kendall in their vineyard

I’ll have to admit that making a documentary is really just a good excuse to take a road trip, and we rewarded ourselves with greasy spoons and a bottle of Mike’s zin to toast a weekend of capturing stories of determined artisans defying the odds in a risky business, facing well-funded competition, fickle weather and a tough economy all the while. Can’t wait to see their stories on the screen. We’ll definitely be heading back to talk to more Sonoma winemakers and capture the vineyards in the late summer. We thank everyone we met on the trip and look forward to following their careers.

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Categories behind the scenes, The Wine Movie
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