I wanted to shoot the upcoming wine harvest in Portugal. Where to start? This is where having a good understanding of pre-production is vital.
A quick Google search taught me that there are 26 DOCs (main regions), 4 IPRs (sub regions) and 11 VRs (regional wines). In other words, lots of options to choose from. A good problem to have.
The Strategy
Since I’m based in Lisbon and don’t own a car I decided to focus on two nearby regions, Alentejo and Setubal. After researching online a bit more, I found a very comprehensive and seemingly up to date website for the Wines of Alentejo.
I located the info for the marketing department and emailed them, asking for help selecting a few small wineries that would be willing to participate on a video shoot. Surprisingly, they replied, but the answer wasn’t good. Alentejo has 160+ wineries and they can’t recommend some over others. Understandable.
Field Research
The next step was to pay a visit the marketing department. Perhaps over coffee I could ask more specific questions. For example: How many female wine makers are in Alentejo (answer: two). Who are the youngest winemakers with most potential? Any wineries using ancient or very different winemaking methods. Bingo! Now I had a list of 15 candidates. The pre-production research was starting to pay off.
Back in Lisboa I went to the offices of Viniportugal at Praça de Comercio. A complete waste of time as the two young employees only cared about checking Facebook on their phones.
My next move was to go to my favorite wine store in Lisbon, where I have developed a wonderful friendship with the staff. They helped me narrow down the list from 15 to 7 candidates. Much better.
Engaging the Target
Then I drafted a short, to the point email, indicating exactly what I wanted to do, why I wanted to do it, and how shooting as a 1 Person Crew would not interfere with their busiest and most important time of the year. Then I asked Fernanda, my incredibly awesome Portuguese teacher to help me translate the email to Portuguese.
I sent the seven emails and within two days received three replies, all positive. Honestly, much better than I expected.
With my friend Gonçalo we scheduled an early morning to scout two of them, Cabeças do Reguengo and Herdade dos Outeiros Altos. Both produce high-quality wines in very small batches, and both have incredible stories behind them.
The First Battle
Here’s a quick video that my friend Bruno put together from the location scout footage at Herdade dos Outeiros Altos.
A couple of weeks later we spent a whole day documenting the harvest and now we are just missing one last interview with the winemakers to deliver the final video.
The total pre-production process took me about a day or day and a half counting the roundtrip drive to Evora, and the location scout at two wineries took another day. Shooting was less than two days, including the interviews.
Keep it simple.
