Wine Going Viral: Ambitious Multimedia Project Aims to Capture Entire Santa Barbara Vintage

By Gabe Saglie, Senior Editor, Travelzoo
(published in the Santa Barbara News-Press on January 14, 2014)

Let’s call the wine grape harvest a race.   Then, you can liken the crack of the starter pistol to the precise moment a grape leaf emerges from its bud.  What follows is a no-holds-barred game that lasts most of the year, with teams of growers and winemakers descending on fields of vines and striving to capture essence in a bottle.  The checkered flag that waves in the end is the barrel’s bung, sealing in the freshest of wines as it begins its journey toward maturity.

Wouldn’t understanding this – and seeing it, in real time, even, and through myriad media – elevate one’s appreciation and enjoyment of that wine?

Fernandez uses a camera mounted on a drone helicopter to film a vineyard (credit: Jeremy Ball)

That’s the inspired notion driving Wil Fernandez these days, and an ambitious project that aims to capture Santa Barbara County’s 2014 harvest in its entirety.

“I spent a lot of time [last] summer in wine county, taking a lot of pictures, and I soon realized that what I was doing was documenting viticulture,” says Mr. Fernandez, 35.  “And I thought, why not take it up a notch?  And create a dramatic documentary, digitally distributed through different channels and platforms, that followed the story of the vine from beginning to end?  And in real time?”

The multi-tier project, dubbed Vintage 2014, will depend on multiple video cameras rolling simultaneously.  Content will be collected daily, from bud break to grape crush, at several strategic vantage points throughout the county.  And, rather than collecting video to edit into a full-length documentary later, video will be released as short episodes throughout the year.  Photo essays, social media content and audio broadcasts will also emerge throughout the year.

Filming is set to start in March, when initial bud break is expected, and last through October or November.

Periodic photo essays will be part of the multimedia Vintage 2014 project (credit: Jeremy Ball)

Mr. Fernandez’ vision for the website that will house his project: “All content will live on a map of Santa Barbara County that can be explored by space and time.  You see the map, at a wide scale, and you can flow through from March through October.  And different types of media will pop up, depending on the timing during the growing season.  You’ll be able to see what’s happening in the Sta. Rita Hills and the Santa Maria Valley at the same time.”

The project features some formidable local talent; the visuals are under the direction of Michelle and Jeremy Ball, the award-winning husband-and-wife team behind Solvang-based Bottle Branding.

And funding is being raised online, through the cloud sourcing web site Kickstarter.  Pledges of support are open to the public, and for any amount; a $10 pledge gives access to private behind-the-scenes footage, like bloopers, while $75 gets a commemorative t-shirt made of organically grown cotton.  The initial goal – which has not yet been met – is $20,000, pledged by this Friday, January 17th, to pay for equipment and develop the web page.  Subsequent drives will be earmarked for things like producing time-lapse video of the entire 9-month production, an interactive 3-D map and a soundtrack recording of original music by local artists.

Fascinating.  But “ambitious in scope and cost,” as Morgen McLaughlin, executive director of the Santa Barbara County Vintners Association, puts it; though, she admits that “the idea is innovative and it would be exciting to see this project come to fruition.”

Mr. Fernandez says he’s got the energy to do it.  “I move very quickly,” he insists.

In fact, the former ad executive from L.A. is not new to high-stakes endeavors.  He’s run ad campaigns for BWM motorcycles, banks and pharmaceutical companies.  Once, when he ran a project for Gloria Ferrer sparkling wine, he launched a food truck tour that doled tapas nationwide and included online tie-ins through QR codes.

But when he got bored with life in Marina Del Rey four years ago, he hit the road.  He’s had no physical address ever since, actually.  He’s been driving around in a 40-foot Winnebago.   And of all the places it’s taken him, Santa Barbara – and the wine valleys on the other side of the mountain range, in particular – appeals to him most.

“When I first went over the hill and saw the Santa Ynez Valley, I got all tingly.  I just found something special.  I was blown away,” says Mr. Fernandez. 

“Stress melts away when I go over that mountain.  It’s a little paradise.  And it’s like a yo-yo.  No matter where I’ve been in the last four years, I keep finding myself back here.”

This past summer, that included falling hard for the wine industry, the agriculture that defines it and the people who drive it.  And it included becoming convinced that the caliber of Santa Barbara wines rival those of Napa and Sonoma.  The fact they’re in their shadows is, rather, a matter of marketing.

Fernandez hosts a pop-up Santa Barbara wine tasting in Phoenix

Over the last few months, Mr. Fernandez has aligned himself with about a dozen Santa Barbara County wineries.  He’s their marketing consultant, under the banner Central Coast Wine & Food (CCWF).  And he’s organized pop-tastings and intimate winemaker meet-and-greets with consumers, restaurateurs and media in key markets across the country, like Houston, Phoenix, New Orleans and Miami.  

The Houston event included a video simulcast, via Skype, with Cold Heaven winemaker Morgan Clendenen, which allowed attendees to ask her questions, live, as they tasted her viognier for the first time.  It also helped secure a Texas distributor for Flying Goat Cellars winemaker Norm Yost.  He says he’s benefited from Mr. Fernandez’ “new ideas, and the fact he’s using new technologies.  And I like his energy.”

In November, Mr. Fernandez hosted a virtual wine tasting and live Q-&-A session over Twitter with Clos Pepe Vineyards winemaker Wes Hagen; the internet audience included several influential bloggers who sipped the 2009 Clos Pepe pinot noir simultaneously and interacted with the winemaker digitally.

Next week, he’ll be hosting a series of intimate winemaker events in Key West, Florida, during the five-day 2014 Key West Food & Wine Festival.  CCWF is a sponsor.  Among the presenters will be Laura Booras, general manager at Riverbench Vineyards & Winery; she’s taking 50 mason jars with her, filled with Riverbench dirt, for guests to whiff while they sip the pinot noir that grew in it.  “We’ve never been at this festival before,” she says.

CCWF pop-up tastings feature iPads to display winery info as well as gather consumer feedback

And up next, Vintage 2014.  The multimedia project is the next chapter in what is, at its core, a labor of love for Mr. Fernandez.  It’s meant to bring the vineyard to the people, and increase sales.  “There is a clear correlation between the amount people pay for a bottle of wine and whether they’ve been to a vineyard before,” Mr. Fernandez says, based on man-on-the-street surveys.  “Is it because they have more money to spend, or because they have an appreciation?  When you see everything that wine goes through – nine months of an uphill battle and all the things that can go wrong in between – you appreciate it more.”

The footage and multimedia elements that are released throughout will, in the end, be archived.  There are also plans to submit a comprehensive documentary to film festivals.  But the biggest thrill for Mr. Fernandez is in simply capturing the precise time and place encapsulated in every wine.  “So when, say, the 2014 Clos Pepe pinot actually comes out, you’ll be able to drink a bottle and go back to the web site and look at Clos Pepe Vineyard – and what was happening there throughout the year – in all different kinds of media,” he says.  “It’ll be

an epic experience.”

For more information, go to vintage2014.com.

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Transition in the Vineyard: Firestone-Murray Deal Announced

By Gabe Saglie, Senior Editor, Travelzoo
(published in the Santa Barbara News-Press on January 15, 2014)

Andrew Murray Vineyards has a new home: the Foxen Canyon Road facility that, for years, has housed Curtis Winery.

Andrew Murray

Inked in August, the lease deal between two of the most recognizable players in the Santa Barbara wine scene – which was publicly announced Tuesday – signifies a shift in the careers of several high-profile winemakers and in the futures of several well-known wine labels.

For one, it gives the Andrew Murray Vineyards label a home.  The brand, which was launched in the mid-1990s, sold off its grape-growing estate in the Santa Ynez Valley in 2005.  Winemaker Andrew Murray took a few years off and has, most recently, been making wine in a remote area on the Firestone’s ranch dubbed “Area 51.”  The chance to take over the roadside portion of the property that also includes a thriving tasting room “is a huge, huge opportunity,” says Mr. Murray.  “This story is really about the Firestones’ trusting gesture, allowing us to continue their legacy with the love, attention and energy they know we bring to the table.”  Mr. Murray runs his label with the help of his wife, Kristen.

For the Firestones, this deal represents another step back from day-to-day winemaking operations.  The family, which became local wine growing pioneers when Brooks Firestone launched the first Firestone wine in 1975, sold off two-thirds if its vineyards and the Firestone brand to fellow vintner Bill Foley in 2007.  The family’s Curtis brand, with a focus on Rhone-style wines, now falls in the hands of Mr. Murray, who’s been tasked with paring it down significantly.

“We are, as a family, over the moon about expanding our relationship with Andrew,” says Adam Firestone, who runs the family’s various businesses.  But, he insists, “the Curtis label is by no means going away.”  Rather, it will shed several varietals and focus almost exclusively on the production of a high-end syrah and the popular budget-friendly Heritage Cuvee blends.  And, along with a handful of other private Firestone family wine projects, it will continue to be sold at the onsite tasting room.

Mr. Firestone will continue to oversee the 100 acres of vineyards on his family’s land.  Mr. Murray, who plans on taking over vineyard management in the future, will have access to most of those grapes, especially Rhone fruit like syrah and grenache, which have helped define his eponymous label’s success.

The former Curtis winemaking team has transitioned out.  Winemaker Ernst Storm is now focusing exclusively on his own brand, Storm Wines, which has already won commercial success with pinot noir and sauvignon blanc.  “It’s a natural for me to also focus more on Rhone wines, though at a really small scale,” says Mr. Storm.  Former Curtis Director of Winemaking Chuck Carlson, who will play a consulting role for Mr. Firestone, is now focusing on his own private wine project, Carlson.

The Andrew Murray Vineyards brand officially takes over the tasting room at 5249 Foxen Canyon Road by the end of March, when new signage will be installed and a “modest remodel,” according to Mr. Murray, will be unveiled.

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From Rome, With Love: Writer with Santa Barbara Roots Now Major Reviewer of Italian Wines

By Gabe Saglie

(Published in the Santa Barbara News-Press on Nov. 7, 2013)

Monica Larner always schedules return visits to her family’s wine estate north of Santa Barbara around the end of summer.  That’s when her work as a Rome-based wine reviewer slows down.  But her trip in October was an especially joyful one: she got to witness the birth of her niece, Sienna. 

Monica Larner

“I even got to be in the delivery room,” she boasts.  The healthy little girl is the second child for Larner’s brother, Michael, and his wife, Christina.  The Ballard Canyon-based couple runs the family’s respected Larner Vineyard, which provides Rhone fruit, mainly – grapes like syrah and grenache – to producers throughout the county, as well as for the family’s own Larner Winery label.

It wasn’t entirely a pleasure trip, though.  Speaking with me from Ballard the day before her flight back to Italy, Monica Larner told me, “I had to finish up a huge report on amarone, the wine of northeast Italy, and so I’ve been writing that here.”

A weighty task, to be sure.  Because that report – she predicts it’ll average about 60,000 words – will be devoured voraciously by tens of thousands of wine aficionados, collectors and critics.  Monica Larner, you see, has just become one of the most influential reviewers of Italian wines in the world, having been hand-picked to join the small editorial staff of The Wine Advocate.

“Some people tell me that since I was hired by Robert Parker, I must have Parker’s palate,” she tells me, quickly adding in defense, “But why, just because I work for him?  I hope that thinking eventually changes as the Wine Advocate becomes known for a group of tasters rather than just one man.”

Don’t underestimate the power of that comparison, though.  Robert Parker’s palate, after all, has long been credited – blamed, by some? – for single-handedly driving the way wines around the world are made, priced and marketed.  His Wine Advocate, a publication he launched in 1978 and which is now supported online by erobertparker.com, has more than 50,000 global subscribers, a vast majority of them in the U.S.  And the scores it awards, based on a now-famous 100-point scale, can make or break individual wines, if not entire vintages.

None of that is lost on Larner, who admits Parker is “a monumental figure.”  But she explains that Parker “was a product of his time.  His palate started growing when American’s hunger for European tastes and gastronomy was growing – when Julia Child was getting known – and that’s what brought his importance to such a high level.”

Larner, who started with Wine Advocate in late April, is now part of an eight-member international team of editorial tasters and reviewers.  Parker is one of them, and his focus remains on wines from Napa and Bordeaux.  “I’m responsible for reviewing all the wines of Italy,” says Larner.  “Current releases, past vintages, up and coming news, you name it.”

Typically, she’s on a rotating two-month schedule.  She spends one entire month traveling the country, visiting wine growing regions and meeting with producers.  “I spend a lot of time in the car driving,” she says (and admits she actually finds negotiating the highways of Southern California a lot more daunting).  The month that follows is spent tasting and writing at her Rome office, just outside the Coliseum.  There’s no word limit on her reports for the bimonthly publication.  “It can go up to 150,000 words,” she says.  “And it takes a long time to write, because I want to be careful.”

Careful.  Because Larner is keenly aware of the influence that those words are bound to have, especially since the weakened domestic economy in Italy has made winemakers there extra keen on luring American consumers.  “I’m in a position of greater power, and that’s given me a lot to worry about,” admits Larner, humbly.  “When I publish a score, I can see more of an anxiousness from producers for me to taste their samples.”

These days, Larner’s interest is most piqued by what’s going on in Southern Italy, a region she feels traditional media have ignored.  “So many of those wine in areas like Aetna, Puglia, Campagna – they’re based on grapes so mysterious and weird and unknown,” she says.  “It’s very rustic, but in time, and with more research, I suspect they’re gems.  People just don’t know about them yet.”

Her new job is enhanced, no doubt, by her love for wine.  But more so, perhaps, by her love for Italy.  Larner was 11 when she first traveled there, as the family accompanied her father, Stevan Larner, on his job as Director of Photography for a TV miniseries titled The Winds of War.  (Mr. Larner, who died in a tragic accident on the family’s Ballard ranch in 2005, also had high-profile Hollywood titles like Roots and Caddyshack to his name).

“Italy had a humungous effect on me,” recalls Larner.  “I was a young teen, my aesthetics were beginning to form, and it left a mark on me that continued through my career.” 

Larner Vineyard, Ballard Canyon (Photo by Bob Dickey)

In 1997, when her family founded Larner Vineyard in Santa Barbara County – an endeavor driven by her father’s own passion for wine – Monica Larner was there, selecting clones, planting roots and pruning vines.  But after she finished grad school on the East Coast, she would, in fact, go on to become a journalist based in Italy, writing for daily newspapers and compiling three tourist guide books – and an archive of more than 50,000 photographs – on Italy.   She dabbled in wine writing during this time.  But it wasn’t until 2003, when professional connections led Wine Enthusiast Magazine to offer her a job, that her pen’s focus turned to wine in earnest. 

“Those were 10 wonderful years,” says Larner, who helped the American publication build a substantial presence in Italy with 3,000 wine reviews a year and who, in turn, received detailed training on “everything that made the Italian wine scene tick” and on that all-important 100-point scale.

She’d even go on to win the “Best International Journalist” Silver Grape Leaf, an honor bestowed by Italy’s top wine producers, three times, more than anyone else. 

Her influence, expertise and appreciation for Italian wines now well rooted, Robert Parker came calling earlier this year.  And the rest, at least for now, is history.

The Larners: Michael, mom Christine, Monica and Michael's wife, Christina

Larner looks forward to more return visits to her family’s Ballard Canyon vineyard, where her mother, Christine, also lives.  She'll sip more of her brother’s wines, of course, although she isn’t allowed to review them, or anything out of California, for that matter.  She is aware of the burgeoning Italian wine movement in Santa Barbara – producers working with grapes like nebbiolo and sangiovese – but it’s still all about Italy for her.  “Every grape is a biological creature and will start to reflect the nuances of its surroundings,” she says.  “These varietals perform so beautifully in Italy and are just completely different here.”

But in bigger picture terms, there are parallels in the nuances, and her outlook for Santa Barbara County wine as an industry is enthusiastic.  “Enormous variation – syrah in Ballard Canyon, Happy Canyon with Bordeaux grapes, pinot noir in the Sta. Rita Hills – that makes Santa Barbara similar to Italy,” she says.  “Having huge diversity in one little area is something that’s been a competitive advantage for Italians in the market, and I hope Santa Barbara can follow a similar story.”

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