- Oh (beep) there it is.
Why'd you make me do this.
(calming music)
- Hi there, I'm Aria
and today I received some wine in the mail.
So I'm not actually excited
specifically about the wine
because I really don't know anything about wine.
However, this wine has a very peculiar history
which I'm intrigued by.
Let's give it a little sip first.
That's wine.
What I find particularly interesting about this wine
is that it is fact produced by
the Fellowship of Friends.
A religious group which according to the LA Times
and the San Francisco Chronicle,
has been called a cult by ex-members.
The Fellowship of Friends
most successful venture however,
is The Renaissance Vineyard and Winery.
Which produces some of the best wines
to come out of California
until it shut down in 2015.
In the 1990's, Gideon Beinstcock was the wine maker
and produced some of the most legendary
and extraordinarily long-lived wines.
The wines had been served to U.S. presidents
and respected by wine experts.
I find this quite interesting
that something that can be quite revered
could also have a potentially sordid past.
So while I may not know too much about wine myself,
I do have some friends around the office
that I'd like to share some of this wine with
as well as perhaps some historical tidbits
about this religious group.
I've got a gift for you.
- I love wine.
- [Aria] Are you a wine drinker?
- No.
Should I say that I am?
Damn dude, I love wine.
- I drink a lot of red wine, bordeaux.
I like cabs as well.
- There's some sort of a catch here,
you're gonna read me wine facts.
- Obviously we're sharing the glass.
- [Avia] Oh, that's a heavy pour.
- Whoa.
- 2012, reserved, Renaissance, cabernet sauvignon.
- Has everyone felt like this is a prank?
- [Aria] Yeah I don't know why.
- Because it's you.
- [Aria] How's that smell?
- Like wine.
- Just a little taste test you know?
You don't have to go crazy.
- I fell like I'm gonna be so mad after I taste this.
- [Aria] You're not gonna be mad.
- We have to work together again.
- I was a little nervous
and now I am definitely more excited because I love wine.
- [Aria] You like wine, Joyce, normally?
- I do.
(smacks lips)
a little watery.
- Smells goods.
(laughs) I don't know why I'm nervous.
(laughs)
- I feel like this is a mistake.
I shouldn't agree to videos that Aria makes.
- It's good.
- You're making me nervous, Aria.
- Tastes just like church wine.
- Bland.
- Is this gonna be something where it's like ...
- [Aria] No, no, no, no , no...
- Whoever made this is like bad or something.
- It doesn't have a distinct flavor.
- It has no real taste.
Its just wine and not even good wine.
- I just kind of mostly taste grape
so I'm not tasting like any wood or any.
- You try and taste wood when you drink wine?
- [Aria] Well, actually, I'm gonna read
some facts about it!
(sighs)
- This is now touched my mouth.
- Oh is this one of those videos.
- [Aria] So the wine was, in fact,
produced by the Fellowship of Friends,
- I knew it.
- [Aria] A religious group which,
according to the San Francisco Chronicle
and the LA Times has been
called a cult by ex-members.
- I knew it.
- That's okay, tell me about the friends.
- I'm trying to divorce it from
it mattering that I drank this wine
cause I didn't pay for the wine.
- Can't say I'm surprised.
It's good though.
- You know what, this one's on me cause I knew it.
- [Aria] The Fellowship of Friends
was founded my Robert Earl Burton
in 1970 in the San Francisco Bay Area.
According to the organization's official website,
"From its inception the vision of the Fellowship was,
"and remains, to establish a practical spiritual
"organization and to make it available
"to anyone interested in pursuing
"the spiritual work of awakening."
- Fellowship of Friends, it sounds friendly.
It sounds like...
- We're a fellowship of friends.
- Great club name.
- They usually find a source of income
so at least they're making great wines for presidents.
- Spiritual work of awakening is something
that I would put as a description
of an alleged cult.
- We love awakening.
- Some Matrix stuff.
- Love opening the third eye.
We love breaking the matrix.
We love the simulation.
- Yeah I don't like the vagueness of it.
- There's a lot of vague language in that.
Just like, come for the awakening.
- It doesn't specify which religion.
It doesn't specify what kind of deity they might believe in.
The vagueness means they're hiding something.
I'm just waiting for you to tell me that they like,
touched people or something.
- [Aria] According to the SF Chronicle,
Burton was believed to have been visited by
angelic incarnations of Walt Whitman and Leonardo da Vinci.
He has also predicted or "prophesied"
a number of cultural and natural disasters,
including an economic collapse in 1984,
the destruction of California in 1998,
an Armageddon in 2006,
and some kind of other "disaster" in 2018.
- He prophesied that these things were gonna happen?
- He was wrong about all
and he thought he was making good wine
and he was wrong about that, too.
- I wonder what they put in the wine. Yeah.
- I wonder if I'm gonna start seeing ghosts
after drinking this.
- At least we'll get a reason to take a nap.
- This is a tale as old as time.
A guy believes grandiose thoughts about himself.
Ropes some people in.
Sells a single product but fund him.
- It's hard because in our group in the church
there would be like pastors who prophesied the future
and they like they would be wrong.
- I don't think they fool me.
Unless it was like a winery.
- Spiritual awakening, Leonardo de Vinci was like,
"Ay oh Joyce what's up?"
I'd be like,
"Yo dude I love your art."
- [Avia] A 1996 LA Times article reports
that membership once exceeded 2,500,
but today the Fellowship has only around 500 members.
- That's a lot of people.
- They still have members?
- That's a big drop.
Is Gideon okay?
Is he still doing it?
- Is he dead?
- [Avia] No, Robert Earl Burton is still alive.
- Oh my god.
- [Avia] This same article claims
that the organization expects members to pay
10% of their income for membership fees.
- There you go, the money.
- 10%?
Yeah I can't afford that.
- Which is probably not a lot of money, anyway.
- The 10% of your income thanks a lot.
- I mean there's pay-to-play on basically everything.
You can't even go to the gym without paying a membership fee
so it's like you're gonna be with the Fellowship of Friends.
They got wine to make.
- I mean I'm probably giving 10% in rent, right?
- So a group that I won't name
tried to get me to pay
to be in their classes or whatever
and I was just like,
"if it's not free, it's not for me."
- Now that I kind of think about
all the things that I use my money for,
they kind of get all that for free, right?
- I'll help make the wine.
I'll put on my sandals
and I'll stomp in the grapes and junk.
But to give 10% of my income.
I mean dang I got hoes to feed.
- [Avia] In 1996, the LA Times also reported that
some behavior of Burton's was exceedingly controlling,
such as telling members to stop wearing eyeglasses
and compelling them to wear contacts instead.
He also told married couples to wait
for five years before having children.
And, for a while, women were forced to wear skirts only.
According to this same article,
Burton claimed to be celibate,
"saving his sexual energy for the good of his flock."
- Oh (beep) there it is.
Why'd you make me do this?
- Not good at all.
I put down the wine glass at this point in the video.
- What do you do?
I feel awful about drinking this wine.
How do you take a shower on the inside of your body?
- And I will no longer be holding this wine.
- Wearing glasses thing is weird, really stands out.
- He wants to see those eyes.
- Nah, daddy keeps those eyes in the casing.
- Five years after getting married?
Want to make sure you enjoy the relationship.
You don't want to bring kids into the mix.
- I just said it wasn't that good before.
- Saving his sexual energy for the good of the flock.
But I can't imagine it's anything good.
- My final thoughts?
I hate this and I hate you
and I hate the world that we live in.
- [Avia] We did reach out
and we asked the Fellowship of Friends
to comment on these allegations from former members,
as well as their business interests,
and they did not respond.
- This was enlightening.
I really think it was because
you can get something now in the world so quickly.
It brings about a very good question of
do you ever really know where something is coming from?
- [Avia] Want any more of that?
- Nah baby, you keep the glass.
- [Avia] All right.
- I'm good.
- I'm not gonna finish the wine even though it's good.
- Seems like he got drunk with power.
- He should've just drank his own wine.
- On a larger scale I guess the question is
if we take this as a very extreme example
but do we ever actually truly know
exactly where the goods we purchase come from?
Until then, I will just press my own juice, I guess.
I'm definitely not drinking any more of this wine though.
- And also I've been six months sober
and this has (beep) me up.
(laughs)
- [Avia] I felt bad about that!
(playful music)