I am a creative; I tend to understand things in the context of other things. I've been in film for twenty-five years — first in the camera department, then as a freelance director and editor. I eventually moved to the client side with Audi, then Apple, where I've spent the last twelve years.

Wine became more than a hobby during the COVID era. For someone who spends his days thinking conceptually, wine became a grounding, sensory experience. The looking, smelling, tasting — further grounded by the history, geography, and geology lessons wine imparts — I was hooked.

Traditional study, for me, was never as effective as building conceptual frameworks. So I began using the intangible attributes of the film world — filmmakers, registers of light, process, the character of a camera or lens — and mapping them to wine regions and appellations through shared language.

Establishing that vernacular is how this index started. After building a logic for a handful of appellations, Claude expanded the framework into what cine.wine is today. The conceptual architecture and the pairings are mine; Claude provided the scale.

If you know and love wine, I hope the index gives you a new way into cinema. If you're an aspiring wine student like me, I hope it offers an alternative entry point into understanding wine's iconic regions and appellations — through a language you might already speak.

Feel free to reach out with thoughts or questions on Instagram @josepholesh.

Cheers,
Joe