soyoos’ Kenton Gilchrist, the producer of Ventures in Wine Country, is thrilled a New Zealand cable company has purchased the rights to show all six episodes of season one. Negotiations are continuing with cable companies around the world to show the series shot entirely in the South Okanagan. (Photo supplied)
Wine lovers and television viewers in New Zealand will soon get a good look at how winemakers in the Okanagan Valley live and produce some of the world’s best wine.
The producer of the cable television series that focuses on the lives of winemakers across the South Okanagan is thrilled that a cable network in New Zealand has signed a deal to broadcast the entire first season.
Kenton Gilchrist is the producer of Ventures in Wine Country, which started production in the spring of 2014 at three wineries located in the South Okanagan – Covert Farms in Oliver, Painted Rock in Penticton and The Hatch Winery in West Kelowna.
Shooting for the series wrapped up in early August with the official grand opening of The Hatch Winery and post production wrapped up a couple of weeks later.
Gilchrist and his business partner Jon Hunwick, who are co-owners of Asymetriq, a film and music production company, had signed a contract with Cana Media to try and distribute Ventures in Wine Country once the first season was completed.
Gilchrist just found out last week that the Country Channel in New Zealand has purchased the rights to broadcast the entire six episodes of season one.
It’s expected the series will be broadcast in New Zealand later this fall, said Gilchrist.
“We signed a distribution deal about a year ago and Cana Media has been trying to find buyers ever since,” he said. “The cable network in New Zealand wanted to see the show, they saw it and liked it and agreed to sign a contract. This is our first licensing contract, so we’re pretty excited. The entire first season will be shown across New Zealand, which is obviously pretty exciting news.”
Negotiations continue to have Ventures in Wine Country shown in numerous countries around the world, said Gilchrist.
The distribution company he is working with continues to negotiate with numerous television networks, including Globosat Brazil, MTV 3 Finland, UFB Media China, Nineplanners Korea, Discovery India, Canal Plus Poland, Discovery Nordics, Vibrant TV USA, A&E Asia and Hong Kong Cable.
Five of the six episodes of Ventures in Wine Country were funded by Canadian multimedia giant Telus, with the sixth funded through a Kickstarter online fundraising campaign, said Gilchrist.
The series introduces the owners of all three wineries from the time they started planting their grapes last spring and concludes with all the steps necessary to get the wine to market, including growing the crop, harvesting the grapes and bottling the wine and getting it to wine lovers across the province, said Gilchrist.
“The whole idea was to tell the story of an entire vintage … from grape to glass,” he said. “During the process of shooting the show, we were fortunate enough to have to deal with some pretty significant political issues affecting the inner turmoil taking place in the wine industry in the Okanagan Valley right now. This included marketing and quality standards and this added a lot of drama to the show we weren’t really expecting.”
Gilchrist, who acts as the show’s main writer as well as producer, said he couldn’t be prouder of the final product.
“It took a lot of time and effort and these wineries are all trying to get their product out on the world market, while trying to deal with television crews trying to tell their individual stories,” he said. “We certainly had our challenges, but I think the show turned out great.
“We got to meet and work with some fantastic people … overall, it has been a fantastic experience.”
Gilchrist is hopeful other cable networks in other countries will be interested in signing a deal to broadcast Ventures in Wine Country.
“Our distributors are still working hard to shop it around,” he said. “The bigger the country and the more people who could potentially watch it would mean a bigger and better deal, so it would be really nice to land a deal somewhere like Germany or India … we’ll keep trying and you never know what can happen.’
While there are currently no plans right now to shoot a second season of Ventures in Wine Country, Gilchrist said he has “pitched some ideas” at Telus, including a season that could focus on women who work in the wine industry in the South Okanagan.
Gilchrist is inviting the community to an event at the Watermark Beach Resort in Osoyoos on Friday, Dec. 4.
“The show is going to premier on YouTube, so we’re throwing a little party complete with snacks and drinks that will be open to the public,” he said. “The plan right now is to show episodes three and four, so that will make for about 90 minutes of viewing.”
While Gilchrist is enjoying some down time with his two young children and his wife Sarah, he will be busy again very soon.
Asymetriq has signed a deal to produce a documentary on the opening of the Area 27 racetrack facility on Osoyoos Indian Band land near Oliver. Episode one will focus on construction of the facility, which is expected to start within the next couple of weeks, and the background of how this project came together, he said. The second episode will be shot in the spring when members, who paid $30,000 each to join the exclusive club, bring their sports car to test them at the new facility, he said.
Telus is on board as a full funding partner for this project, he said.
KEITH LACEY
Osoyoos Times
