News On the Wine News Front

13 Wednesday Mar 2013

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Christian Moreau, Jean Francois Bordet, Martin Schliessmann, Palate Press

It’s any writers dream/nightmare to be setting on a ton of material. I’m blessed/cursed in such a way right now.

For example, I have some great interviews with key Indiana winemakers for a piece on the ‘state of Indiana’ wine I promised to Palate Press last fall. Uhh hmm, that’s not finished.

Schliessmann

I have a short interview with filmmaker Martin Schliessmann about his upcoming documentary on Indiana wine. Here is the blog post explaining some of that. The interview is for a future newspaper column.

Last week I visited Chicago and interviewed a number of prominent Oregon winemakers on the emergence of Chardonnay as the ‘next big thing’ from the state. That one is intended for Palate Press.

And, I have updates on a few things from a couple wineries that will make good newspaper column and blog fodder.

That same day I talked with the leader of the Provence wine region about the booming sales of Rose’ in America. That is a newspaper column.

Bordet

Today, I interviewed Chablis winemakers, and ambassadors, Christian Moreau and Jean-François Bordet. We talked about Chablis tourism and selling Chablis. That’s intended as a good follow up to my last newspaper column on the basics of Chablis.

There’s more but you get the idea. It’s also nice to tease some upcoming material here.

About Grape Sense

I launched this site two weeks ago and still working on categorizing and labeling 600-plus blog posts from the past five years.

I have several Indiana wineries to add notes on for the link at the very top of the page.

The previous blog software did not allow a way for me to present quite a few magazine pieces, with photos, I’ve written for Madison Magazine and more. I started building that new page over the lunch hour today.

Filmmaker Telling Indiana Story

04 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by Howard in Indiana, Videos

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Escape Route Flix, Jean Jacques Dufour, Martin Schliessmann, Why Sturgis?

The interview was conducted at Indy’s Capitol Grille at the Conrad Hotel.

A Swiss pioneer, a bevy of Indiana wineries, viticulture authorities, and a vino-stained scribe or two are coming together in Martin Schliessmann’s IN(diana) Vino Veritas.

The project is a “documentary on American Wine – with a Hoosier Vintage” is the way Schliessmann’s describes it on the film’s website.

I met Schliessman, after a couple months of correspondance, in Indianapolis Sunday and was interviewed for nearly 90 minutes on a variety of wine-related topics. He has already visited nearly 20 Indiana wineries and plans on hitting a few more. He’s talked to all sorts of Indiana folk in and near the wine industry. He is trying to arrange interviews with Purdue University’s viticulture experts.

Schliessman is also planning to hire actors to re-enact some of Jean Jacques Dufour’s early days in the 1800s in southeastern Indiana – Switzerland County to be exact.

Schliessmann

Schliessman is no novice. His Escape Route Flix production company had some success with Why Sturgis? That documentary focused not just on the history of the famous annual motorcycle rally but also on the history of the town of Sturgis.

The filmmaker is hopeful to wrap up production on the wine documentary this summer and have rough cuts ready by fall. He sees Public Television as the most likely outlet along with festivals and other special wine-related events. He’ll also have it on a DVD for sale.

It was a great experience and I really enjoyed adding the ‘wine journalist’ point of view in response to Marty’s questions. I’ll have more on the film throughout the year.