“André-The Voice of Wine”, the story of the enologist, who has revolutionized the Californian wine

In the Old World, it’s impossible to trace the history of the modern viticulture back to one name, but in the USA things turned out differently. At the end of Prohibition, in 1933, the cultivation of vines had necessarily to come back to life from scratch, the enology needed new interpreters and an entire sector had to learn, again, to walk. And all this happened thanks to André Tchelistcheff. He was born in 1901 into an aristocratic family of Moscow. In 1938 he emigrated across the Atlantic, after long wandering across Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and France, to change, forever, the Californian enology and much more. An epic story, told by the director Mark Tchelistcheff, nephew of the famous enologist, in the film “André-The Voice of Wine”, screened in preview during “Vino Vip” event, that retraced the life of the first “flying winemaker”, through the voice of André himself and of many protagonists of the wine world , that he worked with during his long career, from Alessia Antinori to Giovanni Geddes da Filicaja, managing director and CEO of Masseto and Ornellaia, to Gelasio Gaetani Lovatelli, the wine consultant.

A dramatic film journey, poetic and touching, across Russia, Europe and America, of a pioneer viticulturist, that was involved in the research of vines suitable for soil and climate characteristics of each region. Starting with Napa Valley: studying the variegated terroir, he was able to identify the area, where make Cabernet Sauvignon at the highest level. He recommended planting Pinot Grigio in Oregon and Cabernet Sauvignon in the state of Washington. Basically, American wine owes it all, or nearly, to André Tchelistcheff : without André Tchelistcheff’s insights it wouldn't have been possible to reach the top quality celebrated, symbolically, by the “Giudizio di Parigi” in 1976, the competition organized by Steven Spurrier, where Chardonnay and Cabernet Franc of Napa Valley, blindly tasted, prevailed against the Bordeaux champions. In Italy, he first understood Merlot potential in Bolgheri, playing a fundamental role in the birth of what is now the most famous Italian wine in the world, the Masseto. Around the world he influenced an entire generation of winemaker, from Louis Martini to Robert Mondavi, from Joe Heitz to August Sebastiani, from John Daniel to Mike Grgich, from Richard Peterson to MaryAnn Graf, from Warren Winiarski to Rob Davis, from Michael Silacci to Mike McGrath, from Jan Shrem to Rick Sayre, from Marco Cappelli to Heidi Peterson Barrett and Jill Davis.