Pirate-Themed Napa Wine Show Launches Online

"Wine Booty with Judd and the Pirate" is a new video series in which Napa vintner Judd Finkelstein invites fellow winemakers to crawl through an enchanted wine barrel into the cabin of a ship, where he interviews his guests with the assistance of a picturesque "pyrate" named Capt. Whylee Raven.

For more about the series, with pictures from last week's preview party at Judd's Hill Winery, please see our Aug. 28 story .

Among Finkelstein's guests in segments already recorded: Heidi Barrett, Marketta Foumeaux du Sartel and Ernie Weir.

It's not the first time the second-generation vintner has called on his college degree in broadcasting and early work experience in Hollywood to create a wine-themed program.

His "" video promoted the 2011 Auction Napa Valley, while the "Judd's Enormous Wine Show" series, launched in 2009, included such hilarities as a toddler focus group for marketing "half-bottles to micro-millennials" and the debut of Capt. Whylee Raven.

Raven's piratical raids on the tasting room — drinking from the spit bucket, fighting a duel with a fork lift —became so popular that he's now playing Ed McMahon to Finkelstein's Johnny Carson in one of the more unusual marketing videos wine country has ever dreamed up.

Take a look and let us know what you think.

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