Again, really fascinating. Watching the blending was surprisingly interesting. I certainly understand not making too many comments on sight (it might come across as pretty pretentious), but maybe an analysis afterwardsâ??or some kind of voice-over of your thoughts would be really interesting. Also, it would be nice to know who was who in the crowd.

Great,great….GREAT!!, episodes Gary. Thank you!!

Im not sure that mic’ing everyone would have mattered. Knowing/understanding/speaking french would have certainly been a hugh plus, for all us. I felt the sense of awkwardness of being there and not understanding everything being said…and waiting for interpetation at some of the chateau’s…plus I thought that you might have been holding back on critiqueing the wines you were tasting…(understandable)….Just how much was involved in getting into those Chateau’s and setting up what you “did” do? Was it an everyday situation at the winerys …just walk in and start tasting, or did it have to be arranged? Please let us know. Again…..thank you for the treat.

aaahhhh…..that was “huge” in my last post, not “hugh”…nothing like checking your spelling before you “submit”

Both episodes had the cool title, but no credits? No shout out to the camera man? The other people behind the seens?

The geography aspect was rather amazing though, I did not know how close the vineyards were so close to each other. Very cool.

Already episode #235? About time for another blind tasting?

Gary-
My favorite part of this ep
was the blending guy!! Wow, not sure
how he does it but it was
unbelieveable!!!!
Also, I love the blind tasting machine.
Very amazing!!!
🙂

QOTD: That’s easy, at the end of the day, talk about a couple of wines [without the maker’s there] and give us an honest indication of some of the wines you tastes, deals, what sucked, etc.

QOTD: How to make these trips/videos better?

1.) As many have already said, mike up all the main characters as we cannot hear them.
2.) Continue to contrast years as you did informally with your hosts, let us know your vintage comments as well.
3.) Contrast taste profiles from different regions and throw in your “QPR”s, are Margaux and St. Emilion , for example, the stand-outs of a vintage?
4.) Let us know what wines you are tasting and show us a score on them somehow, maybe a verbal summary after you leave the chateau or a pop-up.
5.) Focus on wines that we can get or that you can get for us so that we know if we should get excited.
6.) Give us more info on the winemakers/blenders so that we can associate faces with Chateaus.
7.) Let us know which Chateaus we can visit.

Other comment: wasn’t the lady at Chateau Sansonnet the same one who poured Sansonnet wines at WL last year?

Hope this helps,
Karl B.

gonna try to give some of my comments as well:

I don’t want to repeat anything again.. alot of people have some great (and obvious) ideas. One thing that I’m not too sure of is how involved you are in the editing process: compiling your thoughts and thinking through exactly what you want to show. I think if you sit down with Terminator next time and review cuts that he puts together will help alot! Try a first draft and watch it with the WLTV crew and see where their ideas take you. You could then even record extra footage or monologue to tie together the show..

For other inspiration here’s Conan’s visit to Napa (as posted in the forums by Justin)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=20e9invqTYg&mode=related&search=

I’m not saying try to imitate his comedy, but watch the interview style he has, how he brings the viewer into each scene with a few opening comments. Its all about getting comfortable in a new format GV.. you’ll get there!

I really enjoyed both episodes. It seems to me that you guys wanted to be as unobtrusive as possible and IMO that works. I don’t need to be spoon fed the information-because it’s there( as you watch!)Work on the sound, throw in some ratings (if that’s kosher),and don’t be affraid to be repetetive with some of the basic info-vintage and blends ect. The informality of this works keep that alive don’t turn it into a hollywood production.MY 2 cents.

The “by the seat of the pants” WLTV episodes flow because of Gary’s personality and is held together by the wines tasted with quick interjections, viewer questions and topics relevant to the show. It seems loose, but the strucutre is there and, “93+ points or PAZZZ,” the show moves quickly.

The Bordeaux shows are more like home movies: Bad audio, one camera angle, lack of a cohesive story or point. It wasn’t clear what wines you were tasting and what vintages were being poured. Given the context of WLTV visiting a Chateau and doing a video shoot, it probably will always be more muted, imagine telling Ch. Sansonnet that their wine is “OBNOXIOUS” (you caught yourself). However in additon to shooting footage at the wineries, it would be helpful to do voice overs, cut out 20 mintue swaths of uninterrupted footage and keep the pace moving toward some poit of view. It’s not like you have to be Rick Steves in France but outside of the wineries it could be more “WLTV Gary on assignment.” Would it offend the French if you brought your faithful Jets Spit bucket along? And where was the wrist band?

It was interesting to note how vastly different tasting wines in Bordeaux is versus tasting wines in Napa. In France it seems like the focus is more on the potential of the recent harvest rather than finished product in bottle which probably has to do with the way wines are marketed with futures.

It was interesting to hear that the 2004’s were tasting well (i have a few cases) and that the 2006’s have good structure, acidity and tannins. What’s funny is, beforehand, I thought there would be more focus on the 2005 vintage but that was “so yesterday.” It seems as though the ’05 has taken a life of its own, driven by factors outside of France: Parker scores and marketing. The ’05 is selling itself so lets focus on the 2006 and push the hype for the next vintage.

All things being said, you gave the caveat before airing the footage, “some of you might not like it.”

No St Julien??? 🙁

I love the raw footage. How about doing a show on wines from the maker blender guy from Sansonet!!
France, California, and Spain. I think that would be a great show.

QOTD…. you asked about the yeild off the vines…I’d be interested in a small snippit on the viticulture of the grapes going into the wine.

Thanks for the video it was awesome! My wife even watched over my shoulder for a while. Only comments on how to make it better is the sound and an intro to who you are talking/tasting with.

I have to second the comments on lack of understanding for which wines you liked; where there any you didn’t like? The ’06 vintage is as good as the ’05 again not clear as the blends are just now being made. I think it is too cool that you are able to participate in the blending experiments and would give anything to be able to do that. I would just appreciate seeing a bit more information about the wineries.

Really fascinating to watch the blending process at Sansonnet. That was definitely my favorite part of this two day episode. Nice work! As some others have mentioned, I do wish there was some more content about the taste of these wines, instead of just watching your conversations with the people you were visiting. I’m not saying doing so live in those conversations would have been appropriate, but maybe doing an episode on a recap of your visit, talking to the viewers about what you tasted, instead of us just watching your conversations with others. I like the format you did, but I’d like to see an add on episode.

David

Very Very cool. Thank you for sharing and the experience must have been tremendous!!! I can’t wait to visit…. someday!

Entirely fascinating. Thanks for taking us along on your trip.

Neil comment #60.. this is exactly what i was thinking about. thx

I would just like to say that I love the raw footage as is. Sure, it would be nice if people could be heard a little more clearly, but other than that I wouldn’t change a thing. Some people seem to be asking for packaged snippets, but I wouldn’t like that at all. I prefer to draw my own conclusions. Watching these episodes gave me a far better feel for what goes on behind the scenes than anything you could have put together in a neat package. Some people like that sort of thing; e.g., quick highlights with commentary. But I don’t. I’ll take depth and details anyday. Besides, we’re lucky to be seeing this footage at all. Gary didn’t have to have this recorded for us. It’s a gift. And I’d just like to say, “Thank you.”

I see Jeffrey Davies makes his second appearance in Part II.
Nice job Gary and very informative!

Hi Gary – awesome segment!

WHO WAS THE INCREDIBLE CRAFTSMAN @ SASONNET?!?!!

It was amazing how he worked, and how you caught yourself when you realized that he can’t be surprised when a blend doesn’t turn out like he first intended it, because he doesn’t blend based on a “first try”, but instead builds a blend up step by step … it was incredible the way he first blended the Merlot’s @ 50/50, just to get an important baseline, and then tweaked from there.

Freaky – I used to master audio for Albums – I remember how I too started out going with a “best guess” and adjusting from there, at first, it seemed like the right thing to do. But over time, I dropped it, in favor of a kind of step by step & “taste” (listen) way – it worked much better: geez … I guess it’s called craftsmanship, because it’s the same damn thing that guy’s doing with wine!

Now I know.

Gary, I kept thinking about how you set up Part I saying we might be “bored”–are you KIDDING! I could have watched hours. The aging barrels, the blending, the wineries, the conversations… More, More!

QOTD: Yes, improve the sound. Yes, super the names so we know who the other players are. And yes, learn/use a little local language. You are in these people’s homes, drinking their wine. You are an ambassador and it’s the respectful thing to do.

Keep up the great work.

Peter

Gary, enjoyed the episode more than part 1. The Sansonnet segment was great, especially as I have 2 in my cellar and 4 more on the way. It was amazing to see how the blending and how tricky it is to get the right blend.
Suggestions: (like many who have gone before and my comments on part 1)
1) better sound
2) an intro would be helpful
3) more info on the wines that was tasted, struggle to catch which wine and which vintage at time
4) a summary at the end or maybe a separate episode to wrap up the trip and to recap the highlights / lowlights

Great show, thanks for giving us the opp to learn more

The window on the world of blending was the most interesting – you don’t hear much about that process or its importance for the wine (it’s all “terroir,” yield, fermentation, etc).

Mostly redundant, but for future trips it would be great for us to be able to identify the winery people, and also to get some form of actual commentary on the wines tasted and what the wines were. We could sort of tell when you liked or didn’t like a bottle, but that’s not much to go on. I realize it might not be terribly polite to give a frank, on-camera evaluation of the wines when the wine-makers have graciously invited you to a tasting at their Chateau. But don’t be afraid to resort to the voice over or screen text Gary – don’t be afraid!

So in short, it was a great learning experience, but as far as the actual bottles tasted, I have no idea after watching these two episodes whether I would actually like those wines or not!

Keep up the good work! Can’t wait for future travelogues.