For him, wine has a spiritual component. It’s the sensory experience of consuming something that has a magical quality,” says Kershaw. It’s about the history of the land, the composition of the soil, the generations that have worked the land and the personality of the winemaker.” He adds: “That’s what we realized as we spent time in this region.
For people who’re deeply in this world, it’s never just a glass of wine.” Dweck reveals: “When Guillaume asks what year you were born, he doesn’t care about your age. He wants to know if it was a good year for wine. It was a rainy year. ’97?
More acidic’.” The people they show, dedicated to preserving dying traditions, don’t always have it easy. They’re really hard to find because the digital world and modernity have chipped away at those things,” says Kershaw. Our filmmaking process is about getting to know these places and the people really deeply, and letting the audience feel the joy, mirth and the fullness of human existence.” Dweck adds: “That’s what we felt there.
We’re trying to transmit how it feels when you’re fortunate to be part of such a community.” Sold by Charades and produced by Beautiful Development Company, the doc premieres at Venice Film Festival. They visited different wine regions before settling on Burgundy and a place Dweck dubs “a village of pleasure.” As always, they first established relationships. Only then did they start looking for stories.
There’s no script, honestly,” says Kershaw. In the last 30 years, its profile has gone through the roof and it’s become a very wealthy area. When you talk to a Burgundy winemaker, they describe themselves as ‘farmers,’ but they’re like global rock stars because there’s so much demand for their wine.
It was interesting to see this traditional community experience such a huge influx of money.” This led them to tackle the subject of class, perfectly exemplified by the ambitious Enzo, who’s trying to enter the world of elite winemaking. You have to be either born into it or be a billionaire who can afford to buy a domain and lose money on it,“ Dweck says. That was very disenchanting for him.” Aspiring sommelier Céleste is also reconsidering her options in the film.
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