Wine Movies and Me

I have to admit I'm a sucker for any movie about wine, even if the early reviews are bad. Sometimes I'm delighted, but even when the movies are disappointing I never regret having seen a movie that has something to do with wine.

So, you can appreciate, then, that I'll be among the first in line to see "Bottle Shock," a new movie that will begin production in just a month or two. This film will tell the story of the legendary Paris wine tasting of 1976 that helped put California wines on the worldwide map, and it will do so by focusing on Chateau Montelena, which won top honors for its 1973 chardonnay.


Actually, I understand there are two movies in the works about the Paris winetasting competition, but Bottle Shock sounds especially promising with a cast that includes Alan Rickman and Bill Pullman. And, just to make a good thing even better, it was announced this week that Eliza Dushku will play one of the lead roles.

If you're not familiar with Eliza, she was Buffy's vampire-killing alter ego on TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and a serious hottie -- not that this was absolutely necessary to so inspiring a story. Let's just call it divinely inspired casting.

Anyway, the Judgment of Paris, as it's known, is one of those events of which you should be aware to be culturally alive. It's also a major feel-good story, a David vs Goliath story on a par with the U.S. Hockey team winning the gold in Lake Placid. OK, maybe that's a slight exaggeration, certainly in popular terms. But in the world of wine geeks there is no more important event.

Long story short: an Englishman, Steve Spurrier, put together a wine competition in Paris that pitted a number of California wines against a number of famous French labels. The judges were all French, and the tasting was done blind. No one seriously gave the upstart California wines a chance, but California won top cabernet (Bordeaux) and top chard (white Burgundy). I for one can't wait another year to see this movie.