Meet the winemakers
Folklorists have a method for this. You ask everyone in a trade the same questions in the same order, and the differences between the answers become the thing worth reading. Edward “Sandy” Ives spent a career doing it with woodsmen and river drivers in Maine and wrote the manual on how. I studied under him at the University of Maine.
The instrument is my own. Twenty questions, asked of every subject in the same order. Nobody gets a softer set and nobody gets a harder one. What comes back is an account of the work from the people doing it, rather than a tasting note or a brand story.
What gets asked
The same twenty questions, every winemaker.
The first ten are about the person. Where the work was learned, who taught it, what got carried forward and what got left behind. These are asked cold, without preparation, because a prepared answer to a question about your own life is a worse answer.
The second ten are about the craft. The words used in the cellar that don't travel to the tasting room. What a person would have to watch you do to understand a wine. These go out ahead of time to anyone who says yes, with three held back for the call itself.
Nothing about scores. Nothing about the estate. No tasting notes.
- What's the first thing you got wrong, and who caught it?
- What were you taught that you've since stopped doing?
- Is there a tank or a piece of equipment around here that has a name?
- What would someone have to watch you do to understand this wine? Something the glass doesn't give them.
How the hour works
One hour
A single video call, about sixty minutes. Nothing to prepare beyond the seven questions sent ahead.
From the cellar
Wherever the work happens rather than at a desk. Noise is fine.
Recorded
Audio is recorded and kept as the archive of the series. The published piece is written from the transcript.
Consent, twice
Once when the invitation goes out, and again before anything is on the record.
Who this is for
Winemakers, cellar hands, and vineyard managers at any size of winery. The series has no interest in scores, allocations, or acreage. A person who has done the work for two harvests has something to say that a person who has done it for thirty does not, and the reverse holds.
No region is out of scope.
This is not publicity. Nothing gets scored and nothing gets reviewed. It is a record of the work in the words of the person doing it.
The interviews
The first interview publishes this fall.
The Pour Story Society newsletter carries each one when it runs.
Sit for one
If you make wine and the questions look like something you would answer, write to me. Tell me where you work and how long you have been doing it. That is enough.
patrick@vianarra.com