Blood Into Wine

About a month ago I got an email from the world famous Wes Port. The email had no subject line just like every other email I've received from Wes and just contained one sentence "You've got to Netflix Blood Into Wine". After a quick perusal of what exactly "Blood and Wine" was I dutifully added it to my queue.
This perceptive documentary tells the unusual tale of Maynard James Keenan, the hard-rocking, eccentric front man of Tool, A Perfect Circle and Puscifer who abruptly left Los Angeles in the mid-1990s to start a world-class vineyard in Arizona. Aided by wine guru Eric Glomski, Maynard tills the unlikely soil of the Verde Valley despite scoffing from wine snobs and rock fans. Will Maynard's wine, named after his mother, pass the taste test?
 A movie about winemaking featuring a rock star (a very smart rock star) is a big win. It has a couple of comedy segments, a talk with Milla Jovovich, a bit with Bob Odenkirk and a quite funny wine tasting with Patton Oswalt. I devoured the whole DVD, watching all the deleted scenes including a great one about bottling wine following the entire process from barrel to bottle. I spent a very enjoyable couple of hours with Maynard and Eric talking about wine, farming and punk rock. I got a nice education about what it takes to grow grapes in Northern Arizona (lack of water is a feature not a bug) and turn those grapes into a drinkable wine. The whole thing was entertaining and informative.

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