Wine Masters Season 1 ‘France’.





The Farmhouse TV & Film production from The Netherlands has launched, on 18th March 2018 a new cinematic documentary series called "Wine Master". 
http://farmhousefilm.com/
The series tells the stories of some of the most prestigious wine-growing families in 5 different wine regions of France, the storytelling of the terroir, taste, and tradition. 
The viewers learn about the family stories, their personal drive, and origins, history of the best grapes varieties and vineyard management sharing their skill, passion, task division. 
Those families are: 
- E. Guigal from the Rhone Valley

 - Bourgeois family from Sancerre in the Loire Valley

 - Chateau Angelus from Saint Emilion with the De Bouard family

 - Drouhin family from Beaune Burgundy


 - Trimbach family from Alsace 
The Series is filmed and directed by Marc Waltman & Klass de Jong, the editor Manfred Poppenk, line-producer Yael Water, sound design Wart Wamsteker the music performed by Noordpool Orchestra. 
The CEO of the production company "The Farmhouse" is Klaas de Jong a film producer based in The Netherlands leading this production company for motion picture and television entertainment. 
The 5 episodes are made with great aperture and close up, using extreme focus image with pure depth of field, great exposure, and bright light. Watching the whole series gives the sensation that you are almost there next to the winery, barrel tasting and in the vineyard. 
Looking at the slope of the Cote Rotie seeing the camera close to the granite soil and hearing the Guigal family is very educative for a point of view of a professional wine taster, or it is very constructive for a neophyte on the wine scene.
Especially the part dedicated to the Lieux-dits (La Turque, La Mouline, La Landonne) of the Roasted slope of the Northen Rhone, it's fascinating. 
Also make us understand the way the family explains how they use Viognier with Syrah, the use of barrels to achieve finesse, elegance, and austerity from the top Guigal Cuvee to the affordable Cotes du Rhone for everyday drinkers is always an experience. 
On the episode of the Loire Valley the Bourgeois family explain their philosophy of the terroir of Sancerre according to the different soil type. From Kimmeridgian soil (gray colored limestone originally identified in Kimmeridge, England) in the village of Chavignol or the Calcaire soil (white limestone) for the easy mineral sauvignon blanc; they talk about their different Cuvee produced and the single vineyards which are extremely important to understand this part of the Loire Valley. Looking at the film shoot of the famous hill in Chavignol as "Les Monts Dammens" or "La Grande Cote" it's a great opportunity for the viewer to understand the beauties of certain terroir when drinking those wines. 

The De Bouard family from Bordeaux explain their skill and tradition on making one of the best wines from Saint Emilion "Chateau Angelus".
They share their family traditions, history and let us understand how it is important blending different grapes to make a Cuvee. They work with vintage characteristics with the use of different percentage between Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon according to the season, it is extremely fascinating. This episode on Bordeaux models the famous Chateau Angelus and gives an understanding to the complexity and the luxury of this region, with their classification from the old, in 1855 to the revised, in Saint Emilion in 2012. It explains to the viewers the way such a luxury wine is marketed. 

 The episode on Burgundy models the Maison Joseph Drouhin, which in the last 130 years has been in the hands of the same family. They work on close to 90 different appellations and offer a fascinating view of the terroirs of Burgundy, expressing the different appellation to the basic Bourgogne AOP to the high-rank 1er Cru and Grand Cru. Hear the way the monopole Clos de Mouches in Beaune, was acquired by the Drouhin ancestor Maurice and see how this family looks after this 1er Cru as their own baby is a truly visual experience.

Alsace is the last episode; the model of this region is the family Trimbach in the village Ribeauville in the Haute Alsace. This is another great visual experience to see the philosophy between the old and new generation sharing their skill and experience is quite inspiring. The way the Trimbach family explain the different soil of this region, with the complexity you can find on the final wines with the noble grapes variety of Alsace, gives to the viewer knowledge an extra dimension which is very educative. Also, understand the simplicity of how the famous Rosacker Grand Cru vineyard makes of one the most beautiful riesling in the world is speechless; the famous Riesling is called "Clos St. Hune". Trimbach episode really gives the sense of Terroir of Alsace.
Every episode integrates comments of two MW, from UK Tim Atkin and from Hong Kong-based Jeannie Cho Lee which gives an extra dimension to the documentary. 
All the classic platform online make it possible to rent this series "Wine Masters Season 1 ‘France’" on Amazon - iTunes - Vimeo ....
I strongly recommend watching this series; fascinating and interesting!

Best
raffaele mastrovincenzo

Blog 
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wine / spirit / lambic / drinker













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