Meet David Marsteller, a video producer who creates high quality videos, almost exclusively in the food and wine space. I had the pleasure of working closely with David on the Coravin Inspiration and How-To videos this past summer, and when brainstorming interesting people for the Working in Wine blog series, he immediately came to mind. If you want to talk about someone who found a unique path into the wine industry, look no further. He’s the president of his own company, Wellington Media, which focuses on producing high quality food and wine videos. In addition, he runs a video blog, Great Sommeliers, that similarly brings the knowledge and professional wine training of a sommelier to every day consumers – and that’s just for fun.
Wellington Media Group and GreatSommeliers.com
After graduating from college, David went to work at Fox, as many film graduates do. “It was great, I had always wanted to work in TV,” he told me about his time at Fox. But he soon realized that there was a need for high quality wine videos, based on his own personal experience, looking online. “I couldn’t find any – there were a few blogs that had the occasional video that was cool, but none of it was easily digestible for me. It was either way over my head, or so corny that I couldn’t stand it.” So he set out to meet this need, and produce really high quality video content with sommeliers. The sommelier was a natural fit because, “they’re tableside, they’re always there translating wine knowledge at the table, why not put them in front of a camera and have them do that for anyone?”
That was about a year ago. Since launching, Great Sommeliers and has documented live events, traveled to vineyards and wineries, and brought many of New York City’s top sommeliers to life, readily accessible by anyone with an interest in wine. Both of his projects, Wellington and Great Sommeliers were born at the same time, and regularly feed off of one another. They overlap clients and subjects, and help support the other with some similar content.
Day to day
So what does David himself do? Let’s start with Great Somms. “For Great Somms, I’m…everything. I find stories, produce the content, I release them, I do the social media. It started more as a side project – not necessarily a side project, so much as something to really dig my teeth into right out of the TV industry, and something that was a great segue into producing high quality food and wine content.” For Wellington, though, he’s pretty much everything as well. Although he has a small camera crew and some editors that work for him, he produces all of the videos, and acts as “Creative Director” for everything that Wellington puts out.
Why wine?
But why food and wine? Although he said that he saw the “need” for high quality food and wine videos, it occurred to me that you don’t make the jump from traditional business broadcast television production to starting two separate ventures in one year without a good reason. When I asked him, he said that he grew up around wine. His uncles are collectors, and his father is an enthusiast. But it was working in a wine store that really gave him the “wine bug.” Ever since, he’s been an active wine student, working regularly with some of New York City’s most well known sommeliers.
What’s next?
Continuing the success of both Wellington and Great Somms. Both are growing quickly, as is the food and wine industry, and he’s doing everything he can to capitalize on that. When I asked him what the best part of his “job” is, either for Wellington or Great Somms, he said, “Other than I love every part of what I do?” How many people can say that they successfully started two ventures in one year, doing something that they love?
Working in Wine is a semi-regular series on the Coravin blog. On Working in Wine, we feature interesting personalities of the wine industry, and a variety of different job or career functionalities of the industry. Check every other week to meet a new person who works in wine!
