Blood
Into Wine: Film Essay
Overall
this documentary is an excellent representation of how difficult it can be to
enter the wine making industry, with the intimidating competition of wine
producing regions such as California, Italy, Australia, etc. This documentary covers
the difficulties of starting a wine company from scratch and especially the
fact that the wine enthusiasts Maynard Keenan and Eric Glomski decided to
produce wine in the unproven growing region of Arizona. These Trailblazers,
through constant trial and error took on the challenge of establishing a wine vineyard
in the small town of Jerome, which mostly consisted of the northern Arizona
deserts. From here they established wineries such as Caduceus Vineyards, by
Keenan, and Arizona Stronghold Vineyards, by Glomski.
Some initial problems, as Keenan discusses
throughout the movie is calibrating the extent of grape growth before they are
damaged by the sun or other weather hazards. Keenan stated multiple times that
he had lost millions of dollars to matters of inexperience in wine producing.
He had replanted his entire crop of vines three times, but thanks to Glomskis
experience in the wine business, and Keenan’s past success as a rock star to
the band Tool, he had the economic infrastructure to support these failures.
Other hazards new to the Arizona winery were desert driven insects and animals
such as wild pigs, breaking through the barriers that were meant to handle
previous creatures from older wine regions. Another surprising problem was the
threat of snow that damaged half of the vines in the first few years of Glomskis
and Keenan’s winery building process. In the end these hardships have allowed
their winery to adapt to the new troubles, which will make their wine better and
will demonstrate to other wine enthusiasts that Arizona can produce satisfactory
wine.
Obviously
the new region brought new challenges never before seen in any region of the
world, but the terroir was also unique to the new region as well. The ancient volcanic
gravel of the area and overall heat gives the grapes a unique dry and earthy
flavor. This is significant to a wine lover because it allows the drinker to
increase their palette with new flavors in old grapes thanks to the distinct
terroir of the desert region. Wine taster James Suckling, from Wine Spectator,
personally visited Keenan’s winery at the end of the movie and tried a few of
the wines he had to offer. He later discussed he had tasted the flavors such as
the volcanic ash with his sense of actually visiting the site where the grapes
were grown. Additionally he states that the most important thing for a new winery
such as Keenan’s is that the Wine has to be different. Wines, such as Keenan’s
Judith, which was named after his mother, are what Suckling thinks wine should
aspire to be. Suckling tries thousands of wines in a year so trying something
so unique to his palette, such as Judith’s minty taste, is what winery’s should
aspire too, rather than trying to make the same flavor of Cabernet or Merlot as
a Napa valley or Tuscany.
This perseverance
for difference is inspired by the overall history of Jerome as a major mining town,
which burned down multiple times and became a ghost town for a certain amount
of time. Even with all this turmoil and hardship the town endured and returned as
a small community committed to the arts and innovation. This motivated entrepreneurs
like Keenan to start the wineries in this location. Furthermore Keenan’s winery
has benefited the town of Jerome as well. If Keenan had not built the winery a new
housing development would have been built in its place. This is a benefit to the
town because the documentary explained that a winery uses a smaller amount of
water than the housing development would of. In fact a housing development
would have tripled the amount of water used, which would have been a problem to
the arid desert town where water was already scarce. As the winery grows it will also give the town
fame and a positive atmosphere that could produce a positive growth of new wine
makers to the city.
Furthermore,
Keenan’s evolution of wine knowledge and production seems to increase with the
viewer as he explains other hardships such as the technical production of the wine.
Glomski describes this production as 90% work rather than to my personal belief that it could be an easy job. To show how
tough being a winemaker can be Keenan uses his musical tours with his band Tool
as mini vacation from the constant work of being a winemaker. The actual
production of wine is seen when Glomski is demonstrating the technical aspect
of each mechanical device involved in the fermentation of the grapes. I learned
this from class as well but seeing it in action really helped me understand the
process further. Furthermore, the entire wine producing process was captured on
film and seeing all of made me realize personally how long a wine maker spends
to produce a single bottle of wine. The first step, which is also in review of
the class, is to plant the grapes, which Keenan personally shows how to do. The
next step, once the grapes are grown and harvested in late August, is to place
the grapes in boxes that are small enough so that the grapes will not break from
the weight of other grapes. After the grapes are separated and crushed, they
are fermented in tanks where Keenan demonstrates the added yeast poured to
increase the process. This machinery is large and requires constant
maintenance, as seen by Glomski’s endeavors to fix a machine that had broken a
wine bottle. All of this seems daunting but to a learning wine enthusiast, such
as me it will only benefit to my experience with wine.
Overall
this documentary is an inspiring story that I would recommend to any audience,
even if they were not wine lovers because of Keenan’s perseverance to achieve
his goals. He is an inspiring character who proves that you can achieve
something you enjoy through determination and a little help if you are lost in
how to achieve a goal. This documentary inspired me to try and change how I
interpret my goals so I can achieve them more efficiently even if it goes
against the comfortable and less productive approach.
