A Matter of Taste
Two crime bosses pit their wine tasting skills against one another in a contest to become head of the underworld –
only they’re vampires and the wine isn’t actually wine.

James Austin McCormick’s humorous crime-horror hybrid pits underworld mafiosos, DUKE VINCENZO SALIBRI and ARTUR DUBEK, against each other for full control of the criminal empire as head of all families. How, you ask? In a wine tasting competition!

This clever low-budget affair follows OWEN REEVES, a young tabloid journalist who attends the historic taste-off in attempt to expose the dark and secretive mafia crime world.

With several underworld criminals serving as the audience, crime boss Salibri shows off his impeccable palate as first-up in the very pretentious competition. You can practically picture him sipping with his pinkie out.

SALIBRI
East European.

He places his glass down on the table.

SALIBRI
Slavic.

He looks at his opponent.

SALIBRI
Definitely peasant stock.
I would say the west bank of the Vlatava.

But these aren’t your typical mafiosos. And this isn’t a “wine” tasting – they’re vampires and what they’re tasting and describing is blood!

Though Salibri carries himself as the more sophisticated one, his brutish, seemingly less sophisticated opponent, Dubek, has a pretty strong palate, himself. Though rather than sipping, he prefers to chug the “wine”. Unfortunately for Dubek, he’s simply outclassed by the bourgeois Salibri, ultimately losing the taste-off.

But Dubek refuses to lose quietly and the seemingly innocent competition turns into a Shakespeare-esque sequence of double-crosses that will inevitably cause a war between the old and new families. And in the midst of all the mayhem, our human journalist, Owen, is outed by MORTARUS, the meeting’s mediator.

MORTARUS
Mr Owen Reeves, a human who bribed our official chronicler
to trade places with him here today.
He works for one of the lower order tabloids.
No doubt he expected it to be his big scoop,
exposing our world to the humans.

The fate of Owen’s career (and life) now lies in the hands of a room full of vampire crime bosses.

Smart and witty, McCormick’s script offers a new twist on both mafia films AND vampire films.