Season 2 “New York Grape Escape” 2016-2023
After swapping ocean swells for vineyard rows, the Raths dive into their most audacious reinvention yet: transforming 70 acres of New Zealand wine country into their version of paradise. They name it “Fiddler’s Green”— an ancient sailor’s dream of an afterlife where the music never stops, the dancers never tire, and the wine flows eternally. The irony of trading one impossible dream for another isn’t lost on anyone..
The Manhattan hustle that once served them so well now crashes against Kiwi bureaucracy like waves on rocks. Their consultant team watches in bemused horror as Colin attacks New Zealand’s labyrinthine regulations—Resource Consent, Offshore Investment Approval, Entrepreneur Visa—with the same bull-headed determination that built a Chelsea condo complex. Back in New York, their foreclosure saga reaches its bizarre conclusion as they earn over a million dollars renting out the very condo they’re losing, while two mortgage companies fight over who gets to claim it.
At Fiddler’s Green, the Raths discover their Chelsea construction site was just a warm-up for the chaos of running a vineyard. Colin and Samantha build a 150-seat restaurant, expand into hemp cultivation, install solar panels, and somehow manage to produce 50,000 bottles of wine annually with a crew of 15 that could have their own reality show. Their children, initially shocked by rural life, begin to embrace this landscape of endless possibility. The dream seems finally within reach.
Then COVID slams New Zealand’s borders shut for three years. With hospitality frozen and wine exports choked, Colin reverts to his high-wire financial instincts. But Kiwi authorities prove less forgiving than New York banks— creative accounting lands him in prison for 18 months on tax fraud charges. His family retreats to New Orleans while the twins start college, and upon release, Colin finds himself deported back to the States.
In a final twist worthy of their entire saga, he turns incarceration into opportunity, writing their story while behind bars. His eldest daughter, armed with a film degree, helps transform his prison manuscript into the hit series “ALL IN,” while Colin pulls one last hustle—selling 300 cases of his New Zealand wine in America for a small fortune.
The season weaves through this culture clash with help from New Zealand’s most iconic characters: Gandalf explaining property laws in between wizard battles, PM Jacinda Ardern breaking down GST during a sheep shearing, the All Blacks demonstrating proper tea etiquette between rugby scrums.
It’s “Green Acres” with a Kiwi accent, “Ozark” with better wine, and “Rose’ Is the New Black” with more sheep—proving that while you can take the developer out of New York, you can’t take the New York out of the developer. The story ends not with failure but transformation: a Manhattan real estate saga becomes a New Zealand wine country epic, then morphs into a prison redemption tale, before finally emerging as the television series we’re watching.
In true Colin Rath fashion, even defeat becomes raw material for the next big score. He uses his infamy to promote his series, It’s all on the internet, why not use it to my advantage?