A team of US documentary-makers have taken the exploration of wine "Down Under" to a new level, claiming to be the first in the world to conduct wine tasting with sharks.
The Wineram group, whose projects combine tourism, adventure sports and wine appreciation, filmed their encounter with the great white sharks for a documentary and web series to be released next year.
Director Colin West made the trip off South Australia with customised, plastic-covered wine glasses and music – AC/DC and Tool - to play underwater to attract the sharks.
"Doing the shark cage wine-tasting we weren’t sure if it would work," Mr West said.
"We found a random video with someone with a wine glass covered in wrap so we tried that, you make a hole and the wine comes shooting out.
"And we weren’t sure if we’d see the sharks but we did - a couple of 5m white sharks.
"There was one two feet from my face and it stuck by for an hour and 15 minutes."
For the surfer’s first shark encounter, using the music’s vibrations to attract the sharks was a better option than bait.
“I was nervous before we got there but when we got on the boat I got a really good feeling and felt really safe,” he said.
“When boats use blood to attract the sharks, they go crazy over the blood and they have bleeding and missing teeth from chomping on the cage because they get so riled up.
“They seemed to come when the music started but I’ll leave that to the scientists.
“The sharks just kind of cruise and come by, it’s a better experience [than using blood] because you see them how they really are.
“It was cool being down there - we were really excited we were dancing to the music.”
Mr West, who has a masters degree in wine business and says one of his previous projects became the most-viewed web wine documentary in the world, said the shark-diving project was “professional”.
“We didn’t want to try and confuse this as ‘We’re going off drinking and swimming with sharks’,” he said.
“We might have swallowed wine once and no way we would have peaked over .05.
“What was interesting from a wine perspective was wearing the mask, it blocked out my nose and all you can really get is the acidity.”
The 26-year-old said he wanted to create the wine version of MasterChef after falling in love with the show in Australia.
“I was watching MasterChef and couldn’t find anything on TV for wine,” he said.
“When I told people I was a wine business guy they’d say I was wine connoisseur or snob.
“People see it as having a stigma it doesn’t have.
“I studied with awesome guys who went surfing and we’d stop and go wine tasting.
“I wanted to try and break down the misconceptions that people have and show them the way I see the wine industry - I travel the world and see the hottest tourism destinations and showcase the beautiful scenery and get to work with helicopters along the way.”
Producing an Australian series of eight web episodes and an hour-long documentary, Mr West also went skydiving in Canberra and fishing with celebrity chef Matt Moran.
“Matt and I went abalone fishing on Kangaroo Island and cooked up the food,” he said.
“I went full circle - MasterChef inspired me and then I got to film with one of the judges.”
Next they’re heading to Western Australian where they plan to drink rose at the pink Lake Hillier and film the underside of the south west wine region’s surf breaks.
“We’re going to do some scuba diving to check out surfing from a new perspective,” he said.
“We’ll dive underneath the waves and see how the pro surfer rides the waves – in the Margaret River area for the majority of it.
“We showcase the towns and cities nearby so people see they can be in Perth and visit these places over the weekend.”
They also plan to visit WA wineries including Cape Mentelle, Voyager Estate and Leeuwin Estate.
The first of the eight episodes will be available in early 2014 via the Gourmet Traveller and Wineram websites.
