By Matthew Fitzsimmons

As a self-professed wine nerd, I’ve watched plenty of films about the wine industry. Given this background, you can imagine my excitement when my friend, filmmaker Chrisa Giorgi, announced her intention to make a documentary specifically about Virginia wine.

Having watched this documentary at its initial premiere, let me share my thoughts with you.

Many wine documentaries focus on ‘terroir,’ a French term which describes how a region’s weather and geography influence the wine produced there. These documentaries tend to follow a familiar rhythm, with an emphasis on panoramic vineyard shots followed by a chat with an owner, who uncorks a bottle of wine while explaining what makes his location so special.

The camera then zooms for a close-up. Cue ecstatic expressions as the owner sips from their glass, followed by exclamations of “Wow! That was good!”

We the Wine People focuses on a different, and I’d argue more important story – the people behind the industry itself.

Chrisa traveled across Virginia and filmed at more than 30 vineyards and wineries, interviewing growers, winemakers, researchers, educators, and sommeliers.

What she found is a story of experimentation, resilience, and collaboration. It’s their story that makes this documentary special.

The Story of Virginia Wine

You can’t tell a story about Virginia wine without talking about Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson wasn’t just one an early advocate of American winegrowing. He is arguably America’s first wine connoisseur, whose appreciation of vino was so great he planted an experimental vineyard at his estate at Monticello.

That experiment never resulted in a single bottle of wine. Yet he inspired others to follow his path.

A century later, wines made by the Monticello Wine Company (a Charlottesville-based wine cooperative named after his estate) were winning medals in Paris and Vienna. In the 1970s, Barboursville Vineyards was demonstrating that European Vitis vinifera, the grapes associated with fine wine, could be successfully grown in Virginia.

These pioneering growers learned through trial and error. One of the early scenes of We the Wine People features famed wine grower Jim Law of Linden Vineyards, who was very honest about his early struggles. “We didn’t know what we were doing, it was very rustic,” Law admits.

We the Wine People doesn’t pull punches when discussing the difficulties and potential heartbreak that comes with growing wine in Virginia. I found this kind of honesty to be one of the film’s strongest qualities.

Looking to the Future

While the first half of the documentary discusses Virginia wine’s history and present challenges, the second half focuses on two of the industry’s most important qualities: community and collaboration.

That sense of community was on display in scenes filmed at Charlottesville’s Two Up Wine Down festival, an annual event designed to make Virginia wine more welcoming and accessible to a broader audience. The event highlights not just the diversity of Virginia wine but the people behind it.

Winemaker and Two Up Wine Down organizer Reggie Leonard described his experience in the Virginia wine industry as “Welcoming, warming, inviting.” These themes were repeatedly echoed by other attendees.

If Reggie was the front man for discussing the broader Virginia wine community, it was enologist Joy Ting who best explained the practical side of its collaboration.

Joy discussed her work with the Virginia Research Exchange, a project where winemakers engage in experiments pertaining to winemaking and vineyard management. The results of these experiments are shared, allowing growers and winemakers across the state to improve their vineyard and cellar practices.

This philosophy of “a rising tide lifts all boats” makes sense from a business perspective, but it undersells the full extent of this cooperation. The film shows how it often takes the form of neighbors helping neighbors.

“I could call anyone in the rolodex of winemakers locally and say ‘help’ and I could get it,” said Jake Busching, a longtime Virginia winemaker and consultant. Scene after scene features winemakers with similar stories, recounting times when calls for assistance were answered by neighbors who viewed themselves first as friends and only secondarily as competitors.

These are just a handful of stories featured in We the Wine People. Above all, it’s a story about a community brought together by a shared love of Virginia wine.

We the Wine People is available to watch on Apple TV and Amazon Video. Be sure to follow https://winecellarstories.com/ for updates to viewing parties at local vineyards.

About the Author: Matthew Fitzsimmons is a blogger who has visited nearly every winery in Virginia – most of them twice. Track his progress at https://winetrailsandwanderlust.com/.