For foodies and members of the culinary industry, there has been no shortage of gorgeous and smart programming available on streaming platforms. Among recent popular hits are Ugly Delicious and Chef’s Table on Netflix to A Chef’s Life and Mind of a Chef on PBS.
The wine industry is increasingly seeing similar glossy treatment, such as with the documentary Somm (also available via Netflix) (NFLX) and British export The Wine Show, available in the U.S. via Hulu.
Amazon has been stepping up its original content wing and expanding its on-demand streaming lineup exponentially over the last year, and now it’s getting deeper into the docu-series market with the debut of, perhaps appropriately named, It Starts With Wine.
Produced by Wine Enthusiast Media, the production division of the esteemed wine magazine, the series is described to travel across wine regions around the world, some familiar (California) and some perhaps a bit more obscure, even to oenophiles (such as Uruguay, the subject of the premier episode). Within the span of 30 minutes, each episode will involve winemakers, growers, producers, chefs, and other personalities with the goal of shedding a new, and more personal, light on an industry that tends to have an old world—and sometimes insular, even stuffy—reputation.
But the show’s producers are promising to tell new stories about even the most familiar wine regions. The second episode, for example, will focus on a female vintner-chef duo bringing traditional European winemaking methods to Argentina. The third episode hones in on biodynamic viticulture, leaning on an alternative agriculture movement, at a Mendocino County winery in Northern California.
The first three episodes will roll out immediately on Friday to Amazon Prime Video (AMZN) in North America and to Vimeo’s on-demand service in other markets.
