Living Wine- Land to Bottle 

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By Risa Nye

July 15, 2022

The first thing to know about Living Wine is that it was filmed in 2020. The reason the year is worth noting—as one would note a particular vintage on a wine label— is that this was the year of the Lightning Complex fires: one of the costliest disasters of the year, and the sixth most destructive wildfire in California’s history.

Before viewers know this, however, producer and director of this documentary, Lori Miller, introduces us to a number of nontraditional winemakers who produce natural wines in Northern California.  We accompany these winemakers through their beautifully tended vineyards: Gideon Beinstock and Saron Rice (Clos Saron), Darek Trowbridge (Old World Winery), Megan Bell (Margins Wine), James Jelks (Florèz Wines), and Dani Rozman (La Onda). Continue reading →

Deep Diving into Living Wine

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By Fred Swan

July 15, 2022

Many wines are simple. The world of wine is not. A seemingly endless list of factors creates the individual character of any wine. From microbes to mesoclimate, from variety to vintage.

If you scratch the surface of most any wine topic, you’ll find greater depth, and more connections with other topics, than you’d imagine. Living Wine, a new film being released Friday, July 15, does more than just scratch the surface of “natural wine.” Nearly every one of its 85 minutes raises an idea or question that would be fascinating to explore in depth.

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Devour! Chefs & Shorts: Food, Film & Wine

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By Geneva Anderson

Jetting out of Halifax is rarely simple for Devour! The Film Food Fest co-founders, Lia Rinaldo and Chef Michael Howell.  As they headed for the 25th edition of the Sonoma International Film Festival, they were schlepping 400 Sober Island Oysters and several bottles of Domaine de Grand Pré’s prized sparkling Champlain Brut.  The special cargo was for Chef Howell as he organized his own appetizer while juggling the details of numerous other participants in the eagerly-awaited SIFF | Devour! “Chefs & Shorts Culinary” Event Honoring Chef Jacques Pépin.

Michael Howell and Lia Renaldo. Photo courtesy Devour!

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CALVADOS CLOSE-UP: On Moviemaking as Tasting Trip

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by Jonathan Kiefer

The origin of AROUND THE SUN is this. My friend Oliver Krimpas and I had been trying to make a movie together for years. The plan was for me to write a script that he’d direct. After a false start with one project that couldn’t achieve liftoff, austere frugality seemed like the only way forward. I tried to think up some idea involving very few characters in mostly one locale. It was like the Mystery Box challenge: to take a few choice luck-of-the-draw ingredients, and a finite amount of time, and prepare a dish that Gordon Ramsay won’t spit out and yell at you for.

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