Good Grape Wine Company

January 14 2009

R.I.P. The Wine Makers Reality Show?

As the gestation of the much-anticipated wine-related reality show The Wine Makers stretches into its 40th month, one begins to think this show is D.O.A. if it is not already R.I.P.

The show was first announced in August of 2005, widely reported on early in 2006 by the mainstream press and blogosphere and then subsequently spot-checked periodically thereafter. As of now, there is no current scheduled date for the show to air.

Heck, in ½ of this period of time Bret Michaels from Rock of Love has been unlucky in love two, going on three times. 

Anecdotally, The Wine Makers was to have aired in the fall of 2008, but was pre-empted (allegedly) based on presidential election coverage, this bit of info. provided on the The Wine Makers web site in early December. 

As a brief aside, I don’t know about you, but I would have much preferred to watch The Wine Makers then, say, John McCain proclaim that our economy is “fundamentally” strong before calling a temporary injunction on his campaign, but I digress …

Some people detest reality television.  Personally, I cop to watching some of it – including the train wrecks in slow motion that make up the VH1 line-up (said Rock of Love).  Top Chef is must-see TV for me.  So, I am anxiously awaiting The Wine Makers even if, at this point, we will have seen enough time elapse to make the fashion choices on the contestants somewhat out dated. 

But, will we all get a chance to see it?

In the process of doing some follow-up on the show, I checked back to The Wine Makers web site and checked their production company web site. 

Hmmm … The Wine Makers web site is down – the URL having expired last month, never a good sign because the registrar companies spam you to renew your addresses, doubtful somebody was simply asleep at the wheel.  And, the production company web site is very scant on information as well, with no mention of the show; this is a change from a month ago when I last checked.

The YouTube site with video excerpts lives on and the administrator of the channel logged in a week ago.

On the Google cached version of the defunct reality show web site, Gail Spangler was listed, along with Kevin Whalen, as contacts.  A phone call and email I sent to Spangler was not returned and an email to Whalen likewise wasn’t returned, either.

Despite this, the show had plenty of promise, according to the promotional materials, a significant line-up of media and support was lined up – Food & Wine magazine, a decent roster of guests procured from Spangler and an alliance with Crushpad Wine for the winner to produce his/her label.  In keeping with the no news theme, an email I sent to a contact at Crushpad has not been returned.

All of this adds up to the very dubious notion that the show will ever make the airwaves.  Cotes du Rhone announced a sponsorship in November of ’08, but my guess is additional monies to underwrite the show have run dry.  The content buying climate may have softened significantly for PBS, or the business development efforts may have been tough to develop, but all signs are pointing to the show never seeing the light of day.  Enjoy the YouTube content while you can, I suppose, though it is more of a sip and spit and not a wine reality show swallow.

*Update*  My contact at Crushpad said that, yes, the show is going to air and that they are planning on bottling the winners wine—just the same, 40 months in, I’ll hold my breath.  One additional thought—if I slavishly watch and blog about the show will that help or hinder my chances of being a contestant for the alleged ‘09 season?

*Update Pt. II*

“Thank you for the blog post, you are a blogger right, you don’t pass yourself off as a Journalist right? Because journalists ...” I just got off the phone with Kevin Whelan, Producer of the show at Doc City Productions, who went into a 2 minute uninterrupted monologue insulting me because I didn’t give him enough time based on my email inquiry to respond (yesterday).  What he failed to note is that I sent an email last week inquiring after noting that the web sites were materially changed for the worse in the intervening time (no response to that email either).  He explained that the sites are being redesigned.  He observed that my inquiry looked like a general fan inquiry and he gets 1000’s of them and can’t respond to every one of them.  Well, my inquiries WERE fan based until a couple of things didn’t add up.  I don’t do investigative journalism, though maybe I should because I’m all fired up after being brow beaten.  When I called Gail Spangler yesterday I did reference myself as a freelance writer.  Ironically enough, Kevin also was ready to jump off the phone without answering the fundamental question—when is the show going to air.  He said “April or May” which will, effectively, be 2 1/2 years after filming took place and 3 1/2 years after announcement of the series.  I asked if he might be willing to send me an email summarizing the conversation (so I could share his disdain for me, I was thinking).  He noted the press kit would be available on Friday of this week. 

Free advice for Mr. Whelan—responding to customer emails is a part of the job and indicates interest from people that want to watch the show while providing ammo for securing additional sponsorship deals.  Second piece of advice, attacks without so much as pleasantries don’t engender goodwill.  Third piece of advice, he might want to go deeper than Google Alerts to understand the wine blogosphere, or any blogging for that matter.  I’m not a journalist, I write Op/Ed.  My Op/Ed was as balanced as is appropriate and I caveated appropriately without asserting fact.  However, with journalistic integrity, I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and keep an eye on the situation without letting our conversation color my impressions of him or the series.  Fourth piece of advice—I have little doubt that this post will be on the first or second page of a “The Wine Makers TV” Google search after my site is crawled by Google.  In hindsight, I think he’ll see his approach could have been better managed.

*Update III*

My wife just made a very good point—I have given her a perpetual hard time because we were married in June of ‘05 and it took her til November of ‘08 to get our wedding pictures done—roughly the same amount of time The Wine Makers has been in our consciousness. 

Her point—people have a lot on their plate, he probably wants to get this show in the can and on the air more than anybody, but a lot of circumstance is involved.  Cut him some slack.  She also thinks Update II is arrogantly written, though it’s not my intention to be arrogant, ever. 

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