PBS wine show

K

Kay Bixler

Kay Bixler
Stumbled across this show called Vintage on PBS which follows three large wineries in Napa Valley at harvest.

If you're curious about what industrial scale winemaking looks like this show will interest you. It was kind of shocking to see huge vineyards that are completely free of any plant life beyond vines. Also the amount of mechanization employed at the wineries is astounding. One outfit processed nearly 200 tons of merlot in one day. My mind has officially been boggled.
 
Didn't know anything about this series until reading this thread, but 5 minutes spent with google was a little concerning. Two of the three wineries are owned by the Terlato group, and the 3rd, Markham has been distributed by them for over 20 years. I'm sure it made obtaining permission and coordinating production quite a bit simpler. After seeing it, any thoughts on objectivity?
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
Can't do it without good help.
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The lengthy list of holdings, at the end of the article, is interesting: mostly crap or "dark side" wines but a few good ones, too.

Not sure what kind of objectivity PBS can strive for, though. I mean, wine is a big world and in order to tell a reasonably cogent story in a reasonable time-frame you are going to have to do a severe selection. As long as they say that they are telling the story of big commercial wine-making then we, the audience, can put claims of quality in proper perspective.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
we, the audience
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Most of the audience probably can't tell Kay Bixler from Markham, no?
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Kay is the one with the balloon basket in her ***********, but you're probably right.

I have now done a pretty thorough googling of this show. Its roots seem legitimate, not spammy. Terlato probably is representative of Napa Valley wineries that would agree to work with Public Television.

The only thing that struck me as odd is that all three of the (women) winemakers are scientists first, winemakers second: Taylor has a degree in Chemistry and calls herself a 'lab rat', Nicholls is an enologist who came to Markham specifically to run a lab, and Vianna was a clinical toxicologist at NY/Weill/Cornell.

I like Science. And I'll complain if my wine strays too far from hygienic. Yet it also needs something more.

Maybe that's the perspective of a drinker: I only need a good couple of glasses. A winemaker at the head of a (roughly) $10M enterprise probably needs sturdier and blunter weapons.

Need to think about this some more.
 
Well the last line in this article: Napa Valley Register says 'The series was self funded'. So I guess at least they weren't using grant money. No idea whether Terlato approached them, or they approached Terlato. Both producers seem to have a background in marketing, advertising, corporate videos, etc. I'm sure the story of record is they approached Terlato.

In fact this article says 'According to Backeberg, "a friend put us in contact with Terlato and these three wineries had exactly what we were looking for. They weren't too small and they weren't too big." '

Not sure how big you have to be to be too big. More than 150,000 cases a year it seems.
 
Backeberg and Hunt work for (or are?) Tribe Road Media. TRM has a long and varied list of productions. On the PBS side, the "presenter" was the Chicago branch, WTTW. Pre-release blurb here.
 
I'm not sure if I know what the denizens of this board want to know specifically?
Doug Fletcher who is mentioned in the article shown by Joe is a friend who I see now & then, usually with food & wine present. His wife is Janet Fletcher who writes a weekly column on cheese in The San Francisco Chronicle. Janet originally was a chef at Chez Panisse. We alternate presenting dinners at our homes which to be honest they earn an edge.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
The only thing that struck me as odd is that all three of the (women) winemakers are scientists first, winemakers second: Taylor has a degree in Chemistry and calls herself a 'lab rat', Nicholls is an enologist who came to Markham specifically to run a lab, and Vianna was a clinical toxicologist at NY/Weill/Cornell.
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Jeff, all of the larger (relatively, of course) wineries here in the East that I deal with hire scientists to make their wine. This appears to be the norm. They are good guys and have all the answers but yeah, their idea of what qualifies as fine wine and our idea of fine wine are more often than not many, many miles apart.
 
originally posted by Kay Bixler:
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
The only thing that struck me as odd is that all three of the (women) winemakers are scientists first, winemakers second: Taylor has a degree in Chemistry and calls herself a 'lab rat', Nicholls is an enologist who came to Markham specifically to run a lab, and Vianna was a clinical toxicologist at NY/Weill/Cornell.
Click to expand...

Jeff, all of the larger (relatively, of course) wineries here in the East that I deal with hire scientists to make their wine. This appears to be the norm. They are good guys and have all the answers but yeah, their idea of what qualifies as fine wine and our idea of fine wine are more often than not many, many miles apart.
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Was not Eric Texier a scientist before becoming a winemaker? Carole Meredith?
How one got to be a winemaker may have some effect on their philosophy but it's not the last word.
 
originally posted by Greg Hirson:
originally posted by Kay Bixler:
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
The only thing that struck me as odd is that all three of the (women) winemakers are scientists first, winemakers second: Taylor has a degree in Chemistry and calls herself a 'lab rat', Nicholls is an enologist who came to Markham specifically to run a lab, and Vianna was a clinical toxicologist at NY/Weill/Cornell.
Click to expand...

Jeff, all of the larger (relatively, of course) wineries here in the East that I deal with hire scientists to make their wine. This appears to be the norm. They are good guys and have all the answers but yeah, their idea of what qualifies as fine wine and our idea of fine wine are more often than not many, many miles apart.
Click to expand...

Was not Eric Texier a scientist before becoming a winemaker? Carole Meredith?
How one got to be a winemaker may have some effect on their philosophy but it's not the last word.
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Terry Leighton was a microbiologist before starting Kalin.

Mark Lipton
 
But more seriously, I suspect that part of the reason you see the scientific backgrounds is risk aversion. The same risk aversion writ large is why the wines tend to be dull.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
But more seriously, I suspect that part of the reason you see the scientific backgrounds is risk aversion. The same risk aversion writ large is why the wines tend to be dull.
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I suspect you're right.

And Nuclear Eric's background is not a hindrance in this regard because he is cleaning up vineyards left to go since WWI. Get 'em quick, before he does too much.
 
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