A Labor Day Tribute to an Unknown Vineyard Worker
Friday, August 29th, 2008
“Vendimia con comportones en 1920.” Photo courtesy Bodegas R. López de Heredia Viña Tondonia.
In just a matter of days, CIAprochef.com, the Culinary Institute of America’s online home, will launch “Rioja: Tradition and Innovation at the Frontiers of Flavor,” a webcast/DVD that represents the culmination of nearly fourteen months of collaborative effort between CIA Greystone in Napa and Vibrant Rioja, and a production to which I am proud to say I made a significant creative contribution.
One of the most painstaking but ultimately most rewarding tasks I was assigned was the sourcing of still images to use as cutaways during the voice-over narration between interviews. Countless individuals, governmental organizations, and bodegas sent us a treasure trove of visual material, enough to turn our humble two-hour production into a multi-part Ken Burns-style video document if we had the time and resources to do so.
As befits a wine region with such a storied past, the most compelling images were largely those captured long ago.
