Thursday, December 17, 2020
Belgian vineyard at Chateau Bioul
Tuesday, December 1, 2020
Film Review: A seat at the table (2019) by David Nash and Simon Mark-Brown , **
Synopsis
A New Zealand winemaking team enters the period known as Vintage when wine is made 24/7 for months on end. Sleepless nights, endless labor, time away from home means they must ensure nature, science and magic come together to overcome each challenge Vintage presents. (from imdb)
Review
A missed opportunity. The makers of this documentary had access to the whole process of harvesting at a large New Zealand vineyard but we learn very little in over one hour of watching this repetitive production. We hear a hundred times how hard the work is during harvest, and how awesome everyone in the multinational team of pickers is, but little else.
Some information that one learns in this film: foreigners now own one third of NZ wine production, the French were the first to invest, in the 1980s.
Biodynamics taking off.
Not so many rules like in Europe about controlled origins, allowed varieties, irrigation, chaptalization, so NZ can experiment more.
One curiosity: lots of pigs apparently threaten the harvest at night, and even deer. As for birds, they try and do their share of eating but mostly cause botrytis, which is some parts of the world is welcome as it allows to make sweet wines, but not here.
Read my reviews of films about wine here.