Bearshead Productions’ “Napa Valley is not just a wine country tour, it is a lavishly filmed tour de force. The DVD distills three years’ work into five hours of interviews and mini-documentaries, including histories of many of the Valley’s notable wineries (Robert Mondavi’s, for instance). An Index feature lets you click into and out of any segment–tour, history, geology, winemaking knowledge, to name a few–at will. By the end of it, you may feel like a Mondavi yourself.” This quote from Forbes.com “The Eye” describes perfectly a newly released DVD about the Napa Valley, its wineries, people, history, individuality and future.
I met Kerry last Monday at a presentation she put on for our office. Since then, I have purchased the DVD and plan to use it as a thank you, closing gift, for my clients. Here is some info about Kerry and her husband, James, from their website Bearshead.com:
Bearshead Productions is husband and wife team James & Kerry Forbes:
Kerry has been an artist specializing in special finishes for walls and furniture for many years, and has recently turned her eye for composition to digital photography, capturing evocative images of the Valley in all seasons. A strong background in design helped her to create the packaging and the graphic layout throughout the DVD.
James shoots, edits and authors the DVDs, while Kerry does all stills photography and graphics. Jamesspeaks fluent food and wine and has been making digital movies since 1997. A graduate
of Bristol University , he also holds the UK ‘s Wine & Spirit Education Trust’ Diploma. He has worked in wine in France (Moet & Chandon), London (La Reserve wine store, Knightsbridge) and Napa Valley (Domaine Chandon, Chateau Montelena and Niebaum-Coppola). He also spent 10 years running his own successful film location catering company in the UK , which afforded him a great opportunity to learn all aspects of movie production.
What I like most about the DVD is its depth of information about the Napa Valley, its uniqueness and even allowing one a chance to sit down with a wine maker and hear first hand their explanation of what goes into making this nectar of the gods. Even for many of who live here, including myself, there are nuances which it takes nearly a lifetime to fully experience about the many truly different areas which make up the Napa Valley.Most of us just glance at the Napa Valley as one big wine growing area but in truth it is made up of many smaller regions, the so called mirco climates. Each region is unique and has its own character which imparts it soul into the grapes, thus the wine. Besides this depth, the DVD contains 88 interviews from winemakers, owners, growers, etc. including such notables as Mike Grgich and Kathleen Heitz Myers.
Here is a link to a two minute preview of Bearshead’s Napa Valley DVD: http://www.bearshead.com/vids/bearshead.html. The DVD is best viewed on a DVD player and large screen TV. If you use a computer, you should use a good DVD viewer and not Windows Media Player/Real Player. Even with the DVD player, you may find a few functions which don’t work as you think they should.
If you find the this DVD as educational and entertaining as I did and you elect to buy, you can do so at Bearshead.com. All I ask is you let them know you found it by viewing my blog. Enjoy ………


