Tale of two vintners
All who love wine will want to see Bottle Shock. Those tragic few who do not, should not.
The alchemy that turns the noble grape into potable art is the subject of Randall Miller's narratively ham-fisted but hugely entertaining independent feature based upon a true story.
Specifically, it is about events in 1976 that led to upstart California wines winning a tasting event over their established counterparts in France. This single, extraordinarily unlikely victory ended France's domination of the market and changed the way the imbibing public looked at other vine-growing countries.
Suddenly, it was alright to drink wine made in the Americas and the Antipodes. More importantly, the recognition encouraged vintners in the New World to stay the course. For confirmation, travel to your nearest friendly local SAQ outlet.
The great Brit thespian snob Alan Rickman is Steven Spurrier, a struggling Paris wine seller who hatches a publicity stunt (with the help of a fictional, colourful Yank pal, played by Dennis Farina) to bring attention to his business.
He will travel to Napa Valley, near San Francisco, hold his patrician nose, and gag back wine from the region. Those he deems remotely drinkable will return with him to France, there to be roundly trounced by their Gallic counterparts in a blind-tasting competition, judged by very French experts.
The first man he meets while navigating an unfortunate Gremlin car through the impossibly beautiful Californian countryside is novice Chardonnay vintner Jim Barrett, broadly played by Bill Pullman.
A reformed lawyer who has thrown everything into his stunning Chateau Montelena estate, the hard-headed Barrett opens Spurrier's eyes to the reality of wines produced by "hicks from the sticks."
Because this is a feature film, and not a documentary, facts will be embellished. Barrett has a son named Bo (Chris Pine), an unreconstructed, All-American hippie in the hunky Dennis Wilson/Beach Boy tradition.
In theory he works for his dad, though they spend more time beating each other's brains out in a boxing ring than pruning vines.
There will be the gifted young vintner Gustavo (Freddy Rodriguez, of Six Feet Under), born to the land and developing his own boutique wine while toiling for the Barretts. The dynamic would not be complete without a blonde hippie chick apprentice (Tasmanian Rachael Taylor), designed to sow jealous dissension among the manly men.
Much of what unfolds is clumsily presented, but fans will not care. The landscape is glorious, the subject a matter of record, the vineyards superb. Overlook, if possible, the sad sartorial and musical fashions of the day, and revel in a moment of history reflected in the glass you might care to enjoy tonight.