Logline An adulterous couple murders her husband to take control of the family vineyard but succumb to the vengeance of the winery’s evil spirits. Personal Comment Morte Per Vino (Death by Wine) is a contained screenplay with all scenes done is a small estate winery in New York State. The story starts as a city-smart con man taking advantage of an old-school family and morphs into a horror story of betrayal, murder, and a touch of the paranormal. The supernatural manifests itself through the guilt of the adulterous couple in murdering her husband so they can be together and take over the family estate. Italian superstitions of ghosts and the evil eye all lend to the susceptibility of the lecherous couple.
Synopsis The story takes place in present-day Hudson Valley in upstate New York at the 125-year-old Giordano Winery. The owner, matriarch, and widow, Signora Giordano, late 60s, runs the winery with old-school charm and rigidity. Her thin, sickly, only child, Nino, oversees the winemaking process. Nino’s wife is the beautiful but shy barmaid who pours the wine for the tastings. Leo Russo, Nino’s only friend, is an athletic, handsome farmhand who is also an artist. Nino shares Leo’s artistic skills with his mother, who commissions Leo to paint a portrait of her son, whom she idolizes and pampers.
The Giordanos live above the winery in gaudy Italian decor, and Leo has a shabby room near the winemaking equipment in the cellar. For two weeks, Leo paints Nino’s portrait, eats dinner with the family, and gains the complete trust of Signora Giordano. Leo is more interested in Signora Giordano’s money than his lust for Teresa. He can’t understand how an alluring woman can be married to the pathetic Nino. Leo kisses Teresa the first chance he gets alone with her, beginning a passionate love affair. Leo and Teresa long for Nino to be gone so that they can be together and plan to kill him so that they can take control of the Giordano estate.
Every Thursday night, Signora Giordano entertains a few friends for a game of Scopa, an Italian card game. Leo impresses the group and plays cards, and Signora treats him like his second son. Leo and Teresa plug the ventilation in the fermentation room, and Nino passes out into the vat of wine and drowns. The grief-stricken Signora Giordano has a stroke on the news of Nino’s death. Leo moves upstairs to help Teresa take care of the Signora, who is refined to a wheelchair.
Leo and Teresa are both haunted by the ghost of Nino that is purple from the grapes. Whenever they try to make love, the spirit gets between them. Every subject Leo paints has the face of Nino on it, and the portrait of Nino seems to laugh at the couple. Then in a yelling fit, they blurt out in front of Signora that they killed Nino. This sends Signora into a coma where she cannot speak or move. One of the Scopa players has a way for Signora Giordano to communicate by blinking. Leo and Teresa fear what the Signora will tell them, but Signora has spasms and cannot finish the message to incriminate the couple for her son’s murder. The couple can’t handle the haunting, and their guilt forces both to sip poison as they have sex at the feet of the wheelchair-bound Signora, who manages a devious smile at their demise.