It’s time to pop some Jeroboams for Bill Paxton and his wine-loving friends from Quincy, Ill.—the winners of the 2025 Wine Spectator Video Contest. The group—which attends the Wine Spectator New York Wine Experience each year—was going for gold with their entry in the contest, “Large Format (Baby Got Casks).” The shout-out to magnums, Nebuchadnezzars and all of the wine bottle sizes in between was set, of course, to the 1992 hip-hop earworm “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-a-Lot.
When triple-crown Wine Spectator Video Contest winner Steve Jacobson announced he was taking the “Hall of Fame” title and stepping down last year, Paxton saw his chance. “Steve’s a very nice guy … I had the thought that this dude’s gonna win it every year if he wants to,” says Paxton. “But when we got the chance—I’ve been writing stupid songs all my life—I thought we might have a shot.”
Paxton—the mastermind behind the track—is a longtime wine lover who caught the bug when he was designated as the person in charge of ordering wine for his group of software engineers at dinner. Self-diagnosed with “an eighth-grader’s sense of humor” and known for creating parody lyrics and ditties, he thought the video contest seemed like a great challenge. The entire writing process took him two hours. “I get a line stuck in my head like, you know, butts are funny and a butt is a wine barrel,” admits Paxton. “Once I’ve got a concept, I can write to it.”
The group of friends with which Paxton attends Wine Experience lent a hand to make the video, guest-starring as gum-smacking Valley girls with sideways ponytails, nutty professors whacking a pointer at a chalkboard, or simply “shaking their cask.” Even if they weren’t on set, they were represented, like the Haydens—the couple who first coaxed everyone to come to the Wine Experience—who grace the video’s fictional Wine Spectator cover.
For the winning entry, Paxton has earned two full weekend passes to Wine Spectator’s New York Wine Experience next month. But since Paxton was already going to attend the full weekend (“There’s never been truer words spoken: If you go to the New York Wine Experience once, you will go again.”), he’s planning on giving those extra tickets to the videographers and vinophiles at Table 16 Productions, Chris and Victoria Kelley, who helped bring the video to life.
Coming in the second among the finalists is “Bacchus Loves Hills (Bacchus Amat Colles),” a sort of Rick Steves–meets–Wes Anderson film from Napa-based videographer Evan Roscoe. The film pays tribute to Spring Mountain wines, as Roscoe scales the sloping vineyards, outfitted in a goldenrod-colored rain jacket with cherry red skis strapped to his back. Along his trek up the mountain, at each new elevation, Roscoe passes by winery owners, winemakers and workers, some hard at work filling wine presses and another helping Roscoe fill his Camelback with rosé.
What helped Roscoe’s film stand out were perfect shots of rolling vineyards washed in sunlight and framed by a robin egg blue sky. To get that footage, Roscoe used an old tool from a filmmaking legend. “The whole thing was actually shot using one of Francis Ford Coppola’s old tripods. They were having a yard sale after the Megalopolis movie,” says Roscoe. “There was a bunch of stuff that he’d been using since the 70s. [I got this] really sturdy tripod, which helps when trying to film on the side of a 30 percent slope.”
In third place, “Wine with Lunch on Mondays” peers into the life and mission of the Gentleman Farmer, a winery and wine events space in the heart of downtown Napa. In their 1920s Craftsman bungalow, vintners and husbands Joey Wolosz and Jeff Durham encourage wine lovers to slow down, pair their wine and food thoughtfully and bring others to the table. “One of the things that got us excited [about the contest was] showing just who we are and having a good time,” says Durham. “The Gentleman Farmer is really about creating relationships with everybody who walks in the door, whether you’re having a five-course lunch with us or whether you’re having a glass of wine with us.” (Read our interview with the Gentleman Farmer duo here.)
All of the 2025 contest finalists earned a pair of tickets to either an upcoming New York Wine Experience Grand Tasting evening or a Grand Tour tasting event. Catch them all, plus some judges’ honorable mentions, and find your own favorite!
Enjoy Unfiltered? The best of Unfiltered's round-up of drinks in pop culture can now be delivered straight to your inbox every other week! Sign up now to receive the Unfiltered e-mail newsletter, featuring the latest scoop on how wine intersects with film, TV, music, sports, politics and more.
