Hello
to all my blog readers out there! I
wanted to pass on some knowledge to you about the wine FILM industry. Yes, one exists despite what you may
think. There are actually a lot of
movies about wine, whether it be a drama or a documentary, these movies are a
great way to learn about wine. The wine
movie that I watched the other day was called
Blood Into Wine. If you have
any interest in watching this movie or would just like to know what it is
about, read on my friends for what follows this is my first every movie
review. (Disclaimer: I am not a
professional at this so remember to take everything I say with a grain of
salt. Much appreciated)
In this
day and age, everyone who is anyone is trying to get into the wine
business. Some just want to get rich,
others actually want to become a wine maker, while others just want to own one because
they have enough money to. Take for
example Walt Disney’s granddaughter, she owns a winery in Napa Valley. With that thought, why am I not surprised
that a piercing and tattoo covered singer from the band Tool decided to start a
vineyard? Well I do give him credit he
doesn’t look like he is going to be singing on stage at any point in this
movie. He has some very interesting
t-shirts that he wears but that’s just getting nit-picky. In the end, he is just a wine maker trying to
make his own wine.
This
documentary starts off with a mock interview.
You see two guys sitting in chairs who have made a show called “Focus on
Interesting Things”. Well let’s just say
you have to have a very good sense of humor to get this part. Basically anytime you see their segment,
which pops up randomly throughout the whole movie, they are interviewing
Maynard and ragging on his wine. They
think wine is ‘disgusting’ and ‘tastes terrible’ and they pretty much hate on
Maynard’s wine. Why this is in there, I
really have absolutely NO idea. I didn’t
find it funny or amusing. But back to
the movie…
This movie
tastes place in Arizona in the Verde Valley.
The closest town is Jerome, it used to be a ghost town until these
vintners came out and took to the land.
While you might be saying, there is no water in Arizona, the conditions
in this area are relatively close to what you would find in any sort of
foothills. Maynard’s vineyard, named
Caduceus, is built into the side of the Black Hills in Arizona. The documentary starts off by looking into
Maynard’s past and trying to figure out what got him to this point. They talk about why he wanted to get into
wine and why he chose Arizona. This is
where you meet the co-conspirator of Maynard, Eric Glomski. Eric’s past is actually in wine making and he
spent years around the country learning how to grow and make wine. When Maynard and Eric meet, they hit it off
and learned that they shared this love of wine.
While Eric had never started his own vineyard, he decided that this
would be a great opportunity to start it head first. From there, the documentary talks about what
goes into make this wine. It talks about
all the problems they have been having in this type of area, both climates and
outside problems. The documentary also
goes to meet other vintners in the area and talks to them about what makes this
valley special. During this segment, the
documentary does emphasis the spiritual settings of the Verde Valley. You see and listen to many different spiritual
leaders who talk about why the land is special and that these people are
actually happy to see grapes being grown here.
As the movie progresses, it travels into the wine making area of the
vineyard. This is where Eric’s specialty
comes in. Eric then talks about what
types of grapes they are growing and of course how they are making the
wine. You seem them fermenting the
grapes, aging them in barrels and most interestingly, you get to watch them mix
the wines. During this time period, the
makers of the documentary go and contact Jim Suckling from the Wine Spectator
Magazine to come and do a tasting of
Maynard and Eric’s wine. Now I won’t
spoil the ending (in case you want to watch this) but you see the three of them
tasting the Arizona wines and I will just say that they all weren’t bad. In between watching the wine process, you get
to follow Eric and Maynard traveling through the southwest United States
promoting their wine. You watch as many die-hard
Maynard fans come to get his bottle of wine signed just to see him up
close. It is an opportunity to watch as
the face of wine drinks change from the rich and famous to just about anyone
with the blink of an eye. In the end,
you watch as two men with a vision are starting to change the face of wine
making.
Obviously
the focus of this movie should be on wine making, right? Or should it be on Maynard? Or should it focus on the Arizona wine
industry? Well this movie decides to try
and cover all three questions, none very well.
The whole time I was watching this movie I could not determine what
point the makers were trying to get across.
At first you thought they were going to glorify the Arizona wine
industry, but they only had a few glimpses of that. Then you thought they were going to talk all
about Maynard, which they did but Maynard is SO boring on camera that if they
had made the whole movie about him I would have gotten bored very quickly. Then they touched, very lightly, on the wine
making process that Eric does. I
understand that he probably wants to keep some information secret but there is
barely a lick on how they make their wines.
I would say the best part of this movie was listening to the issues that
they have faced growing in Arizona. They
faced issues with their water rights. It
took them a long time to convince the town to allow them to divert some water
flow from the Verde River to their winery to water the plants. Well once they got the plants to grow, they
ran into a lot of issues faced by the species in the area. They talk about how the bugs would get on the
plants and get the fruit so they had to cover them in netting. They said they woke up one day and half of
their Sangiovese grapes disappear and they figured out that a pack of hogs had
found their way in and eaten all the grapes!
And since they are just learning, they have had to replant their grape
fields numerous times due to losing vines in the cold winters. This is a perfect example of just how
different it is to grow grapes in this area.
There
were two other parts of this movie that are worth mentioning. First off, the soil around the Verde valley
is very rocky and obviously very dry.
This has both good and back impacts on the grapes. It gives them a more earth taste and the
dryness can help the grapes to not get water logged or have to worry about
mold. What is very interesting of this landscape
is that it is reminiscent of the landscape of vineyards in Italy. I would say that is a pretty large complement
despite the difference in climate. The other
interesting part is that documentary really goes in and is able to portray how
much of winemaking is tied to the people involved. You see that Maynard names the first wine
they make after his mother, a woman that he idolizes. You watch as all those involved give not only
their money but their time and love into growing the grapes and selling this
wine. It is worth saying that this movie
does a great job at showing how much wine making is a love and an art.
Now let
me focus on just the wine that is covered in this movie. This movie was filmed mostly from the
vineyards itself. This could be out in
the field, in the surrounding area or in the cellars. You get to see them planting vines at the
beginning of the season all the way through until they make the wine at the end
of the year. At Caduceus they grow
Chenin Blanc and Chardonnay for white and for reds they grow Sangiovese,
Cabernet Sauvignon, Sirah, Nebbiolo and I think both a Merlot and Tempranillo. This is solely going off the wines on their
website. From a wine making point of
view, you do see them ‘punching down the cap’ and bottling their own wine. I thought it was very interesting to watch
them bottle their own wine because normally most small vineyards will pay for
someone else to do it. Watching them
bottle shows the commitment and the dedication they have to their winery. They also show a private wine tasting where
the main comment they make is that the wine very young. This says to me says that they are making
very full body and tannic reds from their grapes. Now this previous statement may not make too
much sense to some beginner wine drinkers, but if you take a class on wine you
will learn that the best way to age a wine is to make it fuller and increase
the tannins in it. This is a simple
cause and effect relationship. The movie
also gives some insight into how Eric is making this wine. You actually get to see him and a few others
mixing different types of wine together to get a blend. It is interesting to actually see it on
camera because wine is not just thrown together but it is a science to getting
it right. You see him doing calculations
and trying to get the exact concentrations of wine. While I love blended wine, it was very cool
to watch a vintner do it on camera. Finally,
if I didn’t know how important smell was to wine you might miss a very
interesting comment Eric makes. He talks
about how in just the past 10 years his nose has gotten so sensitive to smells
that it’s actually hard for him to be in public places sometimes. His nose has been trained to pick up smells
that are so faint that even the person wearing it might miss it. He talks about if someone washed their hair
that morning with a certain shampoo, he could smell it on them. If they had a faint perfume on he could tell
when they walked in the room. These
simple comments just show to me how important the nose is to wine tasting. While this movie had a tendency to be all
over the place, there were some true wine facts to gather from it.
Now here
comes the very opinionated paragraph, my personal review. For me to be honest, I did not enjoy watching
this movie. It bothered me that the whole
time I was guessing where it was going to go next. I wasn’t sure what the next scene was going
to talk about. I also did not get or
like the humor that they put into this movie.
Maynard was so boring I was wondering how he ever became a stage
performer. Eric was very interesting but
I would have enjoyed listening to him more than what they gave him. Writing this review did bring up some
interesting facts that they covered in the documentary but they were so few and
far between that I suffered through the movie.
While the movie might have been moderate, it did not turn me off from
watching to try some Arizona wine. It
did portray that industry in a good light and made me want to find some of
their wine just to give it a shot. Even
if that is the best part of it, I would say that that was probably the best
they could have gotten out of it.
If you
made it to this part, I hope you learned something from this review and I hope
you were able to come to your own decision on whether or not to watch this
movie. To give credit where credit is
due, here are some websites that I used for reference:
The actual winery:
Other movie synopsis:
