Ryan lely/Sonoma Valley Sun
WineInterview.com features articles, blogs, maps and a large library of comedic wine videos.
Conventional wisdom suggests that the presence of a talking wine bottle is an invitation to quit drinking. For Sonoma-based online venture Wine Interview, however, a chatty cabernet is an enticement to click through the newly launched wine-themed entertainment website. WineInterview.com officially debuted this month with a cornucopia of wine-related content – articles, blogs, maps, an online marketplace and likely the largest library of comedic wine videos currently on the Internet. Many of these videos are created in-house by a crew working in the second story of a Sonoma Highway business complex. Apart from its “CEO and bottle washer,” as Martini joked, the startup employs an editor, webmaster, production manager, bookkeeper and researcher, as well as a cinematographer.
“We thought we were going to be this van that goes out with the camera crew and goes to the event – kind of like reporters,” Martini said of his original vision. “When we started out, we were going to do the typical thing the other Web sites are doing, which is go interview wineries and winemakers. Along the way this looked boring to us. Comedy comes naturally to me, so we started getting into comedy.”
Enter the talking wine bottles – or as their known at Wine Interview – the “Vintage People.” Martini uses the googly-eyed, stiff-necked intermediaries (clad in doll clothes dutifully acquired by general manager Mary-Catherine Cutcliffe) when interviewing such wine industry luminaries as critic Gary Vaynerchuk (host of “Wine Library TV”). The results are a sort of comedic cuvée of information and entertainment designed to appeal to everyone from the oenophile to the wino.
“I do not think we are demystifying the wine experience. I think we are making the wine experience more fun. There are a lot of sites that demystify. Our niche is that we want to entertain you,” explained Martini, who added that there are many other knowledge-based wine sites but few that offer such an array of original content.
“When you start looking at the other major Web sites, they have more videos than us, but when you start looking at the videos they are clones of each other. ‘Here is a winemaker, here we are walking through the vineyards, here’s a viticulturist.’ They’re all saying the same stuff. It’s basically a big infomercial for each winery. It’s not very original content,” said Martini, who, when not being a CEO, cameos as “P. Noir,” in a wine country private detective series.
Among the original video fare offered by Wine Interview is “The Variety Show,” hosted by Rowan Brooks; “Sonoma Jazz Plus,” a look at the music festival through the eyes of talking bottle “Vincent Merlot;” as well as dozens of videos produced by other filmmakers throughout the world and aggregated on the site (in the interest of full disclosure, included are a couple from FilmArt3, the film division of Three House MultiMedia).
“We are only putting up the good stuff. There is a lot of other stuff that isn’t very good,” said Cutcliffe wryly. “We view this as a curatorial endeavor.”
In the meantime, the startup is focusing on refining revenue streams, which include product placement, sponsors, advertising and online sales of merchandise as well as production services. As a largely online venture, the Wine Interview crew has enjoyed the ability to be malleable.
“That’s one of the wonderful parts of being a non-bricks-and-mortar kind of enterprise. We can quickly change our business plan, our concept, even where the market is,” said Martini.
The market would seem to be booming for WineInterview.com, which boasts thousands of hits daily with a distinctly upward trend.
“We are setting a new standard and surpassing the common fare of wine videos. There is an untapped market for high-level wine entertainment. Our love of wine, fresh approach, filmmaking experience and market differentiation will set us apart in this industry,” said Martini. “The staff at Wine Interview resembles more of a film production company than a Web enterprise. With directors, cinematographers, production designers, video editors, script writers and musicians, it is a cauldron of creativity that we are proud to support.”
For more information, call 707.935.3388 or visit www.wineinterview.com
