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.

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.

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.

Notice how Santiago is working with sketches, location photos with notes, and photos with characters sketched right into position.

Our process has been to break the script down into scenes, and then break each scene down into shots. We worked through each shot logically, sketching birds-eye views of camera placement and stick figure drawings. Then Santiago began the sketches and photos of key shots throughout the film that set the tone. He’s going to focus on these key setups. He uploads individual images to our Celtx Studio project so the whole team can review. Next weekend we’ll be meeting with the cast on location, and we’ll try some test shots with live talent.

From the opening scene: visibly pregnant Mary Beth walks from house to car carrying casserole

Since Santiago is our production designer, not just the storyboard artist, he's makign notes on set dressing and what else is needed to flesh out a frame

We've looked at this kitchen a lot, but this is the first time we're getting a sense of what it would be like with three people in it. Suddenly it's much smaller than I'd envisioned.