Rock You Sideways

As the well-known Bible story goes, Jesus pulled the world's greatest party trick by turning water into wine at a wedding that had run dry. Talk about a savior, right? Anyway, it turns out JC's trick was kid's stuff, at least compared to Maynard Keenan's efforts to legitimize northern Arizona as world class wine country.

The hard rockin' Tool front man is the subject of a new documentary film called Blood Into Wine that chronicles his journey from splitting eardrums with Tool and Puscifer to smashing grapes with Caduceus Cellars. The flick, directed by acclaimed filmmakers Ryan Page and Christopher Pomerenke (Moog, The Heart is a Drum Machine), has been lauded by critics across the country, including a scribe at FilmCritic.com who called it, "a rock ’n' roll version of Sideways." High praise, indeed.

Here's the trailer for Blood Into Wine, which will screen at Merrill's Roxy Cinema from Friday, May 14 through Thursday, May 20 as part of the theater's Food & Wine Film Festival and 7D's Vermont Restaurant Week. And if all this talk about wine has made you blush (ha!), prior to the 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. screenings this Friday, The Vermont Wine Merchants and Daedalus Wine Shop will offer tastings of Keenan's spirits.