wine from the rhone & wine from the heart
WINE FROM THE RHONE is a film about winemaking in the oldest wine-growing region of France through portraits of three different, small family wineries representing north, middle and southern Rhone Valley. Domaines Jasmin in Cote Rotie, Clape in Cornas and Gramenon in Montbrison-sur-Lez were chosen because they still make their wines in the traditional way, from tending the hillside vines and raising their own grapes, to harvesting, winemaking, bottling and marketing.
Each winemaker has a very human approach to their craft and a personal story to tell about how they came to be winemakers. Patrick Jasmin worked in the vines and took over the winemaking from his famous father who died suddenly just as Cote Rotie was becoming one of the most refined and sought after wines of France. Auguste, Pierre and Olivier Clape represent three generations of a winemaking family that still work together in their original cellar to produce their legendary dark and spicy syrah wine from the hills above the Rhone river. Beginning in 1979, Michele Aubery-Laurent developed Domaine Gramenon with her late husband Philippe, who died in a hunting accident after enjoying three straight years of winning awards in Paris for his robust yet refined grenache-based Cotes-du-Rhone. Faced with abandoning the Domaine or learning the craft herself, Michele, a nurse, decided to continue making wine for the sake of her son, Maxime, with whose help she now has increased the reputation of the Domaine.
By viewing this film and getting to know more about these winemakers, I think people will both be inspired by their dedication to honest winemaking, their stories of perseverance in the face of difficulty and their generosity of spirit. Viewers will be pleased to better understand what and who is behind the glass of wine they drink and become better acquainted with the unique beauty of the Rhone Valley.
wine from the rhone
(REGION-FREE DVD, 0:55, IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES AND COMMENTARY, AND IN FRENCH ONLY)
"Yasha Aginsky has made a deft, graceful film that brings us as close to traditional winemaking as we are ever likely to get short of planting and harvesting our own grapes. His affectionate look at three multi-generational French families and their vineyards along the Rhone River is an intimate and beguiling portrait of the deep connection between the people and their land. As one of the winemakers says: "What fascinates me is that wine is a product that brings together nature and the human spirit."
- Mike Weiss, Author of "A Very Good Year"
WINE FROM THE HEART (2002), titled Les Raisins du Coeur in French, is a 55-minute documentary about a winemaking couple in French Catalonia from harvest to harvest. It is a portrait of Christine Campadieu and Vincent Cantie, of their life in their vines, their winery and their village, the old Mediterranean port of Collioure, near the Spanish border.
But this is more than a film about wine. It is also a film about the winemakers' relationship to the magnificent natural world surrounding them; their vines overlook the sea from terraces on the steep, rocky slopes of the Oriental Pyrenees. Christine and Vincent reflect on their craft, on their efforts to succeed at a small family business, and on their strong ties to family and community.
The film also addresses the impact of modern life on traditional culture, the vineyard, winemaking and the small fishing village that has become a popular tourist destination.
Shooting over 15 months, we made many trips to Collioure where we camped in the vines in order to absorb and understand the environment. Judging from the enthusiastic reaction of the local jury at the Oenovideo Film Festival in Perpignan (June 2003), we were highly successful in presenting our subject. Or perhaps it is the original guitar music created by the brilliant Daniel Maya of San Francisco, which makes the film so appealing. Whatever their reasoning, they awarded us the Grand Prize, the Jury Prize, the Audience Prize and International Wine Association Prize. It was also an Official Selection of the Bilan de Film Ethnographique, Paris, and broadcast nationally in France on France 3 Regions.
wine from the heart
(REGION-FREE DVD, 0:55, IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES AND COMMENTARY)
“One grows fatigued with wine and vineyard advertisements, say a pretty lady in a gossamer peignoir on the vast lawn of a misty chateau, all of which has nothing to do with the grit and gristle, the profound artistry that is required to make good wine. Maybe the pretty lady is the owner's girlfriend a nd one hopes she takes him for a ride, then joins the crew way out back that actually makes the wine. But then popular and media conceptions of wine making are to the actual process what romance novels are to our native sexuality.
The documentary Wine from the Heart, directed by Yasha Aginsky, is a splendid corrective. I watched it four or five times and liked it better with each viewing, so much so that I wanted to throw my life over and become a lackey at Domaine La Tour Vieille in Collioure, an old port town in French Catalonia. This isn't romanticism as I have a dark past of manual labor including pruning vines in bitter cold and wind. The winemaking couple, Christine Campadieu and Vincent Cantie, has a raw and lucid honesty about their work. Sitting within your own complicated and often sodden life you are utterly drawn in by their strenuous and honest life as you follow them through the seasons.
Anyone who likes to drink wine and has a conscience about the totality of wine will be drawn to this lovely film. It will be a fresh ocean breeze over anyone's possibly compromised day. You simply sit back and ponder the great lengths these people have gone to in order to offer you a pleasure that so closely resembles life's blood, this ultimate palliative, wine.”
-Jim Harrison, February 19, 2002
individual $20
(for personal use)
institution $200
(for rescreening use)
individual $20
(for personal use)
institution $200
(for rescreening use)