For years, Virginia’s vintners have toiled in relative obscurity as California, the Pacific-Northwest, and even goddamned Long Island received attention from the national wine press. Wölffer Estate, more like Bärffer Estate, amirite?! Ahem. Sorry. Lost my cool there for a second. Anyway, now an international filmmaker has stepped in to help rebalance the cosmic/oenophilic scales for the Commonwealth with the power of cinema.

“I had already made films about wine in other parts of the world, and I kept hearing whispers about Virginia,” Chrisa Giorgi, a former journalist and the director of We The Wine People, a new film showcasing the state’s multi-billion-dollar wine industry, told The Lookout in a recent email exchange. Her fourth feature, this movie joins an oeuvre that includes a pair of films on Greek winemaking, and another on Italian importers. “What I found [in Virginia] surprised me,” Giorgi said. “Of course there were beautiful vineyards and very good wines, but what fascinated me most were the people […] It has history, but it also has this wonderful freedom that comes from not having everything figured out yet.”

Erin Keene, the proprietor of Second Bottle Wine and Snack Shop on East Marshall Street, carries products from around the world, and wines from the Commonwealth have won her attention. “The more I've learned about Virginia wine over the years, the more important it has become to have this category well-represented on our shelves,” she told The Lookout in a recent email exchange. “The more in-tune I get with the community of winemakers in our state, the more I appreciate their devotion and progress and want to showcase the quality of those resulting wines to our customers.”

(As it happens, Kiwi Party, a Sauvignon Blanc that Second Bottle carries from Waynesboro’s Common Wealth Crush, has been on repeat all summer here at The Lookout’s HQ.)

Tuning into Virginia winemakers on film took Giorgi, a native of Crete who now calls Baltimore home, roughly a year. “I traveled across Virginia, filming in roughly 35 vineyards and wineries and following the industry through different seasons, harvests, tastings, dinners, research meetings and countless conversations,” she said. But a dream job is often a demanding one, and hers is no exception. The glamor of the sweeping vineyard shots and intimate interviews in We The Wine People belies the strenuous realities of production. “Independent filmmaking sounds romantic until you realize that you are simultaneously the director, producer, cinematographer, sound person, driver, scheduler and person carrying all the equipment up the hill.”

“Wine is also wonderfully inconvenient to film because nature has absolutely no interest in your production schedule,” she added. “Harvest happens when the grapes are ready. Rain arrives when it wants to.” (Not to mention the occasionally out-of-nowhere tornado, as Richmond experienced just yesterday.)

Giorgi will be showing We The Wine People, which features the stories of vignerons, winemakers, and other advocates for Virginia’s historic industry, later this month at Second Bottle. “It felt like a serendipitous match,” said Keene. “I love to throw a party.” Unfortunately, she’s gotten too good at it: as I was reporting this column, the tickets to that show sold out. The vagaries of Virginian winemaking have nothing on the market demand for films about Virginian winemaking, as it happens. But keep an eye on Giorgi’s social media for other opportunities to see her latest movie—in person, or maybe even from the comfort of your couch.

“The Second Bottle screening is part of a small number of special screenings we are organizing before the film becomes widely available,” she said. “Eventually, of course, I want We The Wine People to reach a much larger audience through distribution [but] these early Virginia screenings feel particularly meaningful because we are bringing the story back to the community that trusted me enough to let me tell it.”

Possum Poetry is original verse written exclusively for The Lookout by Penelope Poubelle, the Lookout’s litter critter-at-large. If you spot roadside trash you’d like her to immortalize in doggerel, email a photo to [email protected]. All submissions anonymous!

Earlier this summer, the Department of Public Works dug out a bunch of stone curbs from Chimborazo Park’s frontage on East Broad Street in order to install a new stretch of sidewalk. The pathway looks great! Yes, and: roughly a month after that project’s completion, a tipster reached out to The Lookout with photos of a very similar-looking set of stone curbs piled on the side of a trail in the lower section of the park.

Now, the city is trying to figure out how these slabs—which, judging by the benchmark density of granite and their approximate size, could weigh over 1,000 pounds apiece—arrived in the woods of Chimbo’s lower tier, and whether they’re the same stone stock that the Department of Public Works (DPW) recently removed from the upper tier.

“This is not a [Department of Parks, Recreation, and Community Facilities (DPR)] project,” Jensen Gavulic, a city spokesperson with the Office of Strategic Communication & Civic Engagement (OSC) told The Lookout via email Friday in response to an inquiry about the provenance of the mysterious rockpile. “This is not a [Department of Public Utilities] project. DPW is still working to determine the source of the material, why it is at that location, and whether it is connected to any projects near the park.” So, uh… stay tuned, rockhounds. At least it’s not blood-red industrial waste?

Opened in 2025 with $20 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds, Lucks Field Community Center is a bona fide jewel for Fairmount and the whole East End. But outdoor basketball court and playground not withstanding, most of its grandeur lies within. Which means the building has gotta be open for you to make use of it. Which means you’ve gotta know when it’s open. Here lies the rub.

Last Saturday morning, your humble Lookout editor decided to go do some work at one of Lucks’ luxe, air-conditioned lounge areas. I searched for the hours online, surfacing an unofficial Google Maps result, a DPR Facebook post from October 2025, and a reddit thread from 10 months ago expressing confusion over when the facility was actually open. Unable to find hours listed on the city’s actual website, I decided to roll the dice… and arrived at Lucks Field around 11:30am to find it locked up tight.

Turns out, Lucks Field is open on Saturdays, and DPR does list its hours online. They’re just not easily surfaced via search, they’re not the ones listed in DPR’s own marketing brochure, and they don’t correspond to the hours posted on the front door.

On August 10th, The Lookout contacted OSC to inquire about DPR’s official operating hours for Lucks Field. In an emailed response that day, deputy director of public affairs Tamara Jenkins pointed to a set of hours listed in a table within an accordion menu (“Community Centers”) on the department’s site under a tab (“Facilities”). The nested location of this information may prevent it from ranking well in search-engine results, but more vexingly, the hours—Monday-Friday 7:30am-8pm and Saturday 2-10pm—did not match those posted at Lucks Field. Jenkins did not respond to a follow-up request to clarify the discrepancy.

Yesterday, August 14th, DPR changed the listing for Lucks Field’s hours on its site. Now, they are Monday-Friday 7:30am-8pm and Saturday 10am-2pm. The Lookout was not immediately able to cross-reference those new hours against those posted on the door of the community center. If you happen to swing by, snap a photo of the sign and send it in. But if you’re hoping to actually making use of the facility, I’d recommend having a back-up plan, because you might be—wait for it—out of Lucks.

Happenings on The Hill is a digital bulletin board for events, causes, and other items of interest to East Enders that don’t necessarily merit full editorial treatment. Got something for a future edition? Email the relevant details, links, etc. to [email protected] for consideration!

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