Join us for Part 2 of our conversation with Maba Ba, where we explore the fascinating intersection of filmmaking and winemaking. After wrapping up a documentary on a trash city in Dakar, Maba found himself in the south of France, forging a partnership with a winemaker to produce Flying Whale Wine. With a focus on understanding the delicate balance of terroir and wine production, Maba shares the story of acquiring Domaine Saint-Pierre and the journey to create a wine that reflects their shared vision.
As Maba delves into the complexities of the wine-making process, he also highlights the challenges he faced with sourcing juice from other wineries before realizing the need to build from the ground up. This episode encapsulates his passion for storytelling, the importance of cultural roots, and how his experiences in Senegal have shaped his approach to winemaking. Tune in for insights, inspiration, and a unique look at the world of wine through Maba Ba's eyes.
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Welcome. Welcome to the best five minute wine podcast. Okay. We got a lot to unwrap here.
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So we're, we're talking about sands and Senegal's and flying whales and the WNBA comes into
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the picture in less than two months, you're in France. You know, you skipped a lot of
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the good stuff there. So the woman told you about these great French winemaker, and then
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you called them and they said, you got to come and Oh, no, absolutely not. So she told
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me about the great winemaker. That was mid June. I had to make a documentary film in
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Senegal in July. And so I told the woman, let's meet up in France after I shoot this
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documentary, since I'm already going to be in Senegal. And she was she was down for it.
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She was cool to do that. And so after Senegal, I went to I flew into Barcelona, because the
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winemaker is in was in Perpignan at the time, which is super south of France, about an hour
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and a half, two hours from Barcelona driving. So I flew into Barcelona, rented a car, met
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with her there. And she introduced me face to face with the with the winemaker.
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What about that meeting said, Okay, I want to align my vision for this wine with a particular
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First of all, there was no language barriers. I speak French, he speaks French. Second,
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he was so welcoming from the get go and seeing the enthusiasm in my eyes and what I want
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how much I wanted to learn. It was a synergy because he was right at the time when he started
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a little story about him. He started with doing wine corks. That was his entry point
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in wine. And then he graduated to having a wine plant, where he would bottle wine for
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wineries all around his area. So he bottles about three to 4 million bottles a year, but
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he didn't have a winery. And so when I met him, I came into the plant. And he was like,
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yeah, let's do it. Let's work together. But at first, what we were doing is we will use
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the juice from wineries around him and try to manipulate that juice in ways to get the
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taste that we wanted, you know, but that didn't work. I couldn't get what I wanted.
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And so I told him I need to build it from the ground up like I want. And on top of that,
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I don't just want to juice. I want to understand the whole system. And it was just a synergy
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thing because he also, independently of me, have been wanting to own his own winery for
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a long time. That was always his goal with his family. And so he was like, then we have
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to acquire your place. And that's how it happened. We started looking and started looking
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and got very lucky with Domaine Saint-Pierre, which was about a fifth generation going 120
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years old, century old winery that was already making premium French wine. Some of the vines
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are 80 years old. Their roots go super deep in that tough soil, but it gives you less
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fruits but very dense. And in a nutshell, that's kind of how it happened. It took about
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a year of me going back and forth and working with the juice from other wineries to realize
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that he couldn't do it that way. So we ended up acquiring the winery.
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Interesting. What was the documentary on that you were filming?
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The documentary was about a wasteland in Dakar where all the trash goes from the city of
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Dakar. It's this small city, a trash city called Bobos. It's literally a city of trash.
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There are people who live in that city. It's a whole ecosystem surrounded around trash.
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And we wanted to make the documentary because there is this big movement from the World
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Bank to basically change the systems of trash and greenify it, for lack of a better word.
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But without really taking into consideration the generations of people and families who
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live off that trash and the ecosystem that's already there. So we wanted to give a voice
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Does the trash have that bird, that huge bird?
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Yes, yes, yes. There's a bird, yeah, yes.
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What is the bird called?
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I don't know the word in English, actually. I saw some of them birds, though.
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Yeah, they're huge. They're like pelican-looking birds.
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Yeah, they wanted to get rid of them and they were like, no, they have a function. Yeah,
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I did a paper or a report about the trash and it's, oh, it's just, it's disgusting.
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Yeah, it's tough. It was tough. It was really tough to shoot there for 14 days with masks.
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Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Here in California, they've finally banned plastic bags and everybody's
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complaining and it's like, shut up. Do you know what these bags do and how far around
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And that's insane. I'm shocked that people are complaining. Really?
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Well, you know, the paper bags, they tear and they don't have handles. So it's like,
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oh, my goodness. Wah, wah, wah. But anyway, so you did the documentary and then this is,
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you know, a little bit of history about you as we take a convergence. You mentioned that
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you've got this fascination with basketball and then you've got a fascination with music
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and then now you're making documentaries. And what is your role in the documentary?
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Producer, yeah. So I'm a writer, producer. I'm a member of the Writers Guild of America
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East and I'm an independent filmmaker. Basically, I've been making movies since 2010.
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Oh, my goodness. You're multi-layered. What is the native language? I'm all over the board
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Yeah, Wolof is the native language in Senegal, the most spoken one. And then French is the
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Are the languages similar in style? And, you know, with French, you know, they can sell
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Yeah, no, I think Wolof sells even better. It's a very playful language, but it has nothing
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to do with French. It was there before the French came.
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