“Stem & Barrel: Napa Valley” Debuts on Discovery

Production Company: Dundas Media

Project: Stem & Barrel: Napa Valley

Distribution: Discovery Channel, Cooking Channel & discovery+ (US, AUD & NZ), HBO Max, Apple+ and Prime Video.

Director & Executive Producer: Jason Dundas

Challenge

Invite a new generation into the world of Napa Valley and premium wine through long-form storytelling. Rather than sell wine, the opportunity was to build cultural relevance around it — using entertainment to introduce a broader audience to the people, craft and stories behind one of the world’s most iconic wine regions.

Solution

Turn the 2025 harvest season into a story.

Rather than make a traditional wine documentary, Dundas Media used the harvest as the narrative engine — following three winemakers, three varietals and three distinct corners of Napa Valley from grape to bottle.

The season gave the film a natural arc, real stakes and human characters, creating an accessible way into the world of premium wine. Instead of teaching audiences about Napa Valley, Stem & Barrel invited them to experience it.

Execution

• Filmed across Napa Valley in an intensive two-month window, Stem & Barrel was built around a streamlined, highly mobile production model designed to let the winemakers live and work naturally in their environment.

• Using Sony BURANO multi-camera setups, we combined a run-and-gun documentary approach with cinematic image-making — capturing scenes as they unfolded rather than constructing them around the production. The cameras followed the master winemakers into vineyards, cellars and harvest without interrupting the world around them.

• Production and post-production ran in tandem. Multiple high-performance Apple Mac Studio systems, powered by M3 Ultra drove a live production edit in Adobe Premiere Pro, including complex multi-cam sequences.

• Rather than waiting until filming wrapped to discover the story, we were finding it in real time. Each day’s footage informed what we captured next, allowing emerging characters, moments and storylines to shape the production while harvest was still unfolding.

• The result: a faster, more efficient production process — and a more honest story.

Results

A Napa Valley story that reached audiences around the world.

Stem & Barrel: Napa Valley launched across Warner Bros. Discovery’s linear, streaming and digital ecosystem, ultimately delivering more than 36.4 million impressions.

The film premiered in the U.S. across Discovery Channel and Cooking Channel, with additional broadcasts in Australia and New Zealand, supported by hundreds of promotional and commercial spot airings. The WBD campaign extended across discovery+, HBO Max and WBD Stream.

The film’s reach has since expanded further, with availability on Apple TV+ and Prime Video, extending the story beyond its original broadcast window and introducing Napa Valley to audiences across multiple premium streaming platforms.