Assignment: Blood and Wine; Romanee Conti

Romanee Conti (DRC) is one of the worlds most exclusive wine domains, set on a rather unassuming plot in the Burgundian countryside. Bottles of their wine sell for tens of thousands of pounds and those lucky enough to have sampled it talk about it as a life changing experience. People travel far and wide to come and pay pilgrimage even though the only thing to see is really a sign and stone cross next to very ordinary looking field of vines, all within the sound of the trundling traffic of the nearby motorway. Yet the history of the DRC is steeped in intrigue and the wine growing industry itself is very private verging on secretive. In the mid 2000’s DRC faced an attempted blackmail plot, with the plotter(s) threatening to poison the vines. Ultimately a ransom exchange took place at midnight in a nearby cemetery and waiting gendarmes swooped on the culprits. You can read more about that here.

Nevertheless to be asked to photograph this complicated story was tricky as there isn’t actually all that much to shoot. I was left with the need to try and capture some of that sense of mystery and intrigue as well as a sense of the wine itself and all the surrounding culture that exists in this tight but closed community of skilled artisans. In some ways this was quite a freeing experience and allowed me to approach it in quite an esoteric manner. There is a lot of creative joy to be found in such loose briefs when their is a sense of trust in you using you own initiative and vision to produce the visual elements of the story.

To read the excellent words that accompanied the piece from the writer Richard MacKichan look out for issue 45 of Gentleman’s Journal