Vintertainment in 2026: Wine and Film Communities

Join us.

Hello wonderful readers/listeners. Our wonderful Wine and Movie Pairing nerds!

At least we we hope we can convince you to become one of those in 2026.

Because SEASON 3 of the podcast drops in February - we just posted our brand new podcast logo, a simpler logo to match our new focus on Wine and Movies specifically, even though we still reserve the right to tackle the occassional TV show, book, comic, or album.

But let’s talk about what Vintertainment has planned for 2026 beyond our flagship podcast. We plan to SPREAD the joy of wine and movie pairings, well beyond the podcast and even this Substack.

In Person Wine and Movie Screenings

Our First Official Sponsor!

We have our first official sponsor on board, Curated Wine Shop, a wonderful boutique wine shop / wine bar who will be hosting LIVE in-person Wine and Movies screenings in Los Angeles. Roughly one per month, starting in March. Curated will ALSO be offering us studio space so we can record with Los Angeles guests directly in studio, and Curated will happily assist any guest in finding their wine pairing for whichever movie we’re talking about. Win-win! (Or is that win-wine?)

And we also have an incredible microcinema, filmjourn, run by jake S. weisman, who will be hosting at least a few in downtown LA as well.

PLUS, Coffeehouse Cinema screenings have begun as of today, and I’ll be supplying some wines there as well, to pair with a series of curated short films. And these won’t be the only in person wine and movie events in Los Angeles this year!

So that’s one of our main focuses for 2026: Live and in persosn pairing events, we’ll be focusing on independent filmmakers, who can attend and give the audience an introduction, Q&A and meet and greets after the screenings, and of course plenty of wine and brief wine education so you know what you’re drinking and why.

Wine and Movie Pairing Communities

Naturally, theere will be a community for the in-person events, but we ALSO want to spread the joy of trying your own Wine and Movie pairings at home!

We’ll soon start sharing our own impromptu, daily-ish wine and movie pairings on any night we have the luxury of doing them. Am I watching HEATED RIVALRY tonight? Yes, I think I am. What wine am I going to try pairing with it and why? We’re going to share these regularly in our Substack Chat.

Kinda like we did this past Xmas:

But here’s the important part: we’re hoping that YOU will share YOUR OWN attemped pairings at home! Tell us what you’re watching, what you’re pairing with it and why. And hey, sometimes it’s just: this is the wine I have on hand. So did it pair well? And if so, or not, why?

We want to foster a community of wine and film lovers so we can all have more fun wiith our at home viewings, become more confident in our wine choices, and foster a greater sense of a community - both online and also in person. At least in Los Angeles, for now. And we’ll see how we can spread it from here.

And the podcast will of course continue. We have a slew of special guests to kick us off: first up is Joe and Carmela Mele of THE WINE PAIR PODCAST, one of my all time fave wine podcasts. They’ll be joining us to talk about the movie GAME NIGHT from 2013 starring Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams , one of their favorite movies as a couple. And then a wonderful film mind, Nick Langdon from Letterboxd who will be dialing in all the way from Melbourne Australia to talk about Miracle Mile from 1988, directed by the writer of STRANGE BREW and director of CHERRY 2000.

And from there, expect a slew of guests from the current indie and NonDe FilmStack movements, the filmmakers that are making movies even as the old Hollywood system continues to crumble under the weight of streaming and franchise fatigue.

So join us in February. Especially here on Substack where we’re be announcing our in person events and sharing our everyday wine and movie pairings with our listeners and readers. And this will be where you can share yours, too. (And don’t count out an eventual Discord server - you know I love Discord!)

We’re really looking forward to this year. Join us!

---

ICYMI

While the podccast has been on break, we posted a massive De-alcoholized Wine tasting on Substack:

And we closed it out by covering an absolutely WILD experiment someone did with vacuum distillation and wine:

And then…

we actually DO have a HEATED RIVALRY write up coming up next week! We’ll be doing this as a collab with Tatum West. Be sure to check it out!

Okay folks, hope to see you / read you online, and catch us again here on audio in a few short weeks. Ciao for now.