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Dinastia Vivanco video?
- Thread starter Jeff Grossman
- Start date
Joel Stewart
Joel Stewart
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Dinastia Vivanco video?Dinastia Vivanco, an old Rioja house, is showing a 50-minute video about the wine culture in Spain:
-- see the June 30 program click
-- 29-minute video (different content?) here click
Are their wines any good? Or, are they better at curating their museum than their vines?
The vid, once they get further into the museum, becomes interesting, but seems a slow burner...like do these guys fancy themselves as good?
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
I was hoping VS or another sabio espaol would chime in.
Vivanco is the biggest ngociant firm in Rioja, and as such does a lot of bulk wine business and own-label stuff. The opposite of glamour or of fundamentalist appeal. But they made a lot of money, as Pedro Vivanco is a shrewd trader. Then a few funny things happened - they set up a foundation to further the culture of wine, they built a very good wine museum, and the fledgling quality-oriented winery they had built in 1990 was set on the right course by Rafa Vivanco, Pedro's son, who trained as a winemaker in France and has become friends with some of the good terroir-oriented winemakers in his age group in Spain. (He's now 35.) They are now making much better wines, albeit still too oaky. Their mazuelo (carignan), garnacha (grenache) and graciano varietals are pretty interesting if you want to know the aromatic and flavor profiles of those grapes on the Rioja Alta terroirs.
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
Thank you, Victor, for fleshing out the background here.
Zev Robinson
Zev Robinson
Someone alerted me to this post and web site, looks cool. I'm a Canadian-British filmmaker living in Spain, directing a series of documentaries on wine as culture and history, and just finished the 50 minute documentary cited above. The link to the trailer is
It was made early on in the process and includes interviews with Rafael Vivanco, the winemaker, and Santiago Vivanco who directs the Museum and Foundation.
(The full 50 mintute documentary will be screening at Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Avenue, NYC, at 8:30, June 30, 2010, along with another film on wine. Their will be a reception with wine starting at 7:30.)
I've been back twice since, the last time to interview their father, Pedro Vivanco. Out of nearly 100 interviews that I've conducted, many of them first rate and very impressive, this one has to be the most amazing. He started off delivering wine on a bicycle. He then went off to study wine making and ended up top of his class, and came back to become a major figure in the transformation Rioja wine, and made and blended the wines for well known wineries which, in some cases, did little more than put their own labels on it.
None of the other interviewees gave their wife half the credit, nor did they talk about making sure that their children worked their way from the bottom, including cleaning tanks.
Dinastia Vivanco is their flagship winery, putting their own name on their wines, using their best grapes, and giving them credit where credit is due. It is Rafael rather than Pedro who makes the wine. It was opened in 1994, and have heard remarks that the wine has improved a lot since they first opened. They are also winning medals in competition, including a couple of golds when I was there about a month ago.
I'm not an expert nor have the most sensitive nose or palate in the world, but have tasted a lot of wine over the last couple of years. I really like their three single varietal wines - Garnacha, Mazuelo, Graciano. Their crianza is a very pleasant wine to drink. They hold blind tastings putting their wines against higher priced wines, and do well, which I guess means you get good quality for the price range.
My documentary, btw, is not a promotional video. I take a neutral stance in all my wine documentaries, letting the interviewees talk for themselves about their lives, histories and attitudes. The invite to the screening can be found here - http://zevrobinson.com/wp-content/u...nco-at-Anthology-Film-Archives-NYC-invite.pdf
(The full 50 mintute documentary will be screening at Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Avenue, NYC, at 8:30, June 30, 2010, along with another film on wine. Their will be a reception with wine starting at 7:30.)
I've been back twice since, the last time to interview their father, Pedro Vivanco. Out of nearly 100 interviews that I've conducted, many of them first rate and very impressive, this one has to be the most amazing. He started off delivering wine on a bicycle. He then went off to study wine making and ended up top of his class, and came back to become a major figure in the transformation Rioja wine, and made and blended the wines for well known wineries which, in some cases, did little more than put their own labels on it.
None of the other interviewees gave their wife half the credit, nor did they talk about making sure that their children worked their way from the bottom, including cleaning tanks.
Dinastia Vivanco is their flagship winery, putting their own name on their wines, using their best grapes, and giving them credit where credit is due. It is Rafael rather than Pedro who makes the wine. It was opened in 1994, and have heard remarks that the wine has improved a lot since they first opened. They are also winning medals in competition, including a couple of golds when I was there about a month ago.
I'm not an expert nor have the most sensitive nose or palate in the world, but have tasted a lot of wine over the last couple of years. I really like their three single varietal wines - Garnacha, Mazuelo, Graciano. Their crianza is a very pleasant wine to drink. They hold blind tastings putting their wines against higher priced wines, and do well, which I guess means you get good quality for the price range.
My documentary, btw, is not a promotional video. I take a neutral stance in all my wine documentaries, letting the interviewees talk for themselves about their lives, histories and attitudes. The invite to the screening can be found here - http://zevrobinson.com/wp-content/u...nco-at-Anthology-Film-Archives-NYC-invite.pdf
Ah, but which wine?originally posted by Zev Robinson:
Their will be a reception with wine starting at 7:30.(sic)
Zev Robinson
Zev Robinson
Ah, come and find out. I'm the film maker, and hope you come for the film :). Their importer Opici is organizing the reception.
I do apologize for the typo, tho.
I do apologize for the typo, tho.
Good to see you here, Zev!
I should mention that Zev first made a name for himself in wine circles with another documentary, quite a different one in subject and tone, which began chronicling the story of the bobal grape variety in the Utiel-Requena appellation in Spain and wound up chronicling the despair of impoverished grape growers in the Valencia region.
I should mention that Zev first made a name for himself in wine circles with another documentary, quite a different one in subject and tone, which began chronicling the story of the bobal grape variety in the Utiel-Requena appellation in Spain and wound up chronicling the despair of impoverished grape growers in the Valencia region.
Zev Robinson
Zev Robinson
Thanks for the comments, Victor. I don't know what sort of "name" I have, but things certainly are moving in the right direction. I'm now editing 180+ hours of material that I taped - including many great interviews with you and others - over the last year for a couple of documentaries on Spanish wine as a whole. The first one will be on Spanish grape varieties, each one representing a culture, region and history, which will hopefully be released by the end of this year or early 2011. That too will be different in tone and subject matter, as should they all be. When it gets repetitive, it's time to move on to something else. What interests me is the historical and cultural context, and the countless personal stories behind it.