Independent Filmmaking and Wine: Chris McGilvray on Craft, Passion, and Perseverance

Independent Filmmaking and Wine: Chris McGilvray on Craft, Passion, and Perseverance

From Wine Talks with Paul K. by Paul K from the Original Wine of the Month Club

April 7, 2026 · 58 min · Episode 508

About this episode

Chris McGilvray discusses his journey as an independent filmmaker and his connection to the wine industry.

There has been an uptick in wine media. The series "Drops of God" has raised an eyebrow. It has become quite common when I am speaking about wine that someone asks if I have seen the show. I have been horrified by some of the work I have seen on-line and even on an airline. Just when the industry is reevaluating where it needs to go, ghastly footage shows up in the medai...have we no understanding of what the people want to see? Film is story telling...and Chris McGilvray is keenly aware of this. Though he was focused on corporate productions in the Silicon Valley, the opportunity to document a story of the winery Eden captured his imagination. Chris McGilvray's path to wine was anything but typical—he started at USC's prestigious film school, dropped out to wander Central America, and finally became an independent filmmaker in Santa Cruz, a place where both winemaking and movie making are decidedly unconventional, and the distance from Silicon Valley is measured in more than miles. Chris bridges the worlds of slow cinema and meticulous viticulture, unraveling the layers behind his films Eden and Terroir . Not only does he reveal how the Santa Cruz Mountains' small wine community…

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