Blood into Wine Film Review

Maynard James Keenan, a former singer in the band Tool, is the central character in the documentary Blood into Wine. The documentary explores Maynard's transition from rocker to wine maker, examining his hardships along the way. Maynard and his business partner, Eric Glomski, made a bold decision and set up their vineyard in Arizona, a state that is not known for winemaking. The film follows the two wine makers, one amateur, one a seasoned veteran through their journey of setting up their own vineyard, a process that takes years of determination and hard work.

Maynard was a rock singer before he turned to wine making, and while I have not listened to any of his music, from the documentary, I can gather that it was dark and borderline disturbing. When society thinks about that kind of crowd, it definitely has different connotations than a wine-drinking group. Wine drinkers are stereotypically sophisticated, wealthy, educated and posh. Pretty much the very opposite of those who get tattoos and listen to creepy music and wear all black. Maynard completely broke through this barrier that society has put up around wine drinking and making. The testimonials from his fans also suggest that the two groups are not mutually exclusive. I'm not sure how Maynard's wine is priced, but I would like to think that it is in a way where his fans are able to purchase his wine, and learn about wine like he did.

Embarrassingly for me, when this documentary began I didn't realize that producing wine in Arizona was such a wild idea. If Virginia can produce wine, I just assumed that most states could. It took me a few minutes to put it together that mine making in the desert of Arizona was completely unorthodox. From my understanding, the warmer and dryer climates were the best for wine making, but as I have since realized, maybe the desert is too warm and too dry.

The Arizona setting is very important in this documentary. First, it allowed the filmmakers to give the documentary a western theme, with lots of skulls and desert-y aspects to it. This theme really matched the dry and straightforward personality of Maynard, pulling the film all together. The location of the vineyard in Arizona also provided a great opportunity for some compare and contrast segments. Clearly, California is a powerhouse wine producer, and it is relatively close to Arizona. In the film, Arizona is somewhat depicted at the underdog, and the "good guy," while California is viewed as a villain or bully. Towards the end of the documentary, the filmmakers have wine experts first discuss the idea of wine coming from Arizona and then (blindly) taste wines from both states. It is to the audience's delight that many of them like the wine that Maynard is producing, perhaps even more than a few of the California wines.

My favorite part of this documentary was learning about how Maynard started his vineyard. There are so many unforeseen costs and random expenses; I don’t know how normal people start up vineyards! There were a ton of obstacles in his way, like the animals that were eating his sangiovese grapes and, of course the climate. It was inspiring to see him stick with it and produce a bottle of wine that he was proud of.

I have learned in this class that there is an almost impossible amount of information out there about wine, grapes, and the wine making process. I had no idea that there was so much that went into the wine and that so many flavors could be produced by changing techniques this way or that. For someone like Maynard, who knew little to nothing about wine making to then risk so much capital and time to get into this business is pretty impressive. What I liked about Maynard when watching this film was that he doesn’t really seem to want to go in the traditional route. California vineyards are portrayed in the movie as having dozens of kinds of grapes on their property. But when they were discussing what kinds of wines come out, they were pretty generic and traditional wines. Maynard appears to want to really experiment and work with the grapes, to produce something that he really thinks people will enjoy. I thought that was pretty cool. Who cares if it's a little unorthodox as long as it tastes good?

I did not like the scenes in this film where Maynard is with the two hosts of the show in the studio. It was overdone and instead of being funny, was basically just rude. They were really insulting towards his wine, which could have been funny if it was another guest on the show. But Maynard's dry personality and, to be blunt, lack of sense of humor did not go with this charade. This was too much for me, and it ruined the film a little bit for me, since this scene is how the film ended. It left me with a bad taste in my mouth. However, I would recommend this film to a wine audience. Not because it was profound or elegant or even that informative. It was raw and real and emphasized that wine is not an exclusive product or social circle.  Anyone can love wine and anyone with the right determination can learn to make wine. I think it could be eye opening for people who are really into wine to learn that other not as well known places can make good wine, and the people who want to learn the wine business and learn about wine tasting are not always the stereotypical socialite.