Ending france's reign of terroir

THE democratisation of wine is all but complete, no matter what the French believe.

An Australian wine is just as likely to be served on a British table as a Chilean wine in New Zealand. And the Chinese are making a significant play into the industry as well, exporting wine, for example, from its Shanxi province, which the Chinese purport has a winemaking tradition dating back to the 7th century.

Wine is another industry in the grip of globalisation, for reasons that include the economic and topographical. But an unassuming stunt held outside Paris in 1976, staged by a hitherto unknown expat Englishman, arguably did more to convince winemakers that terroir, the sense of place imbued in wine, wasn't a sacred French property.

The expat, Steven Spurrier, held a blind taste test that would introduce Parisians to wines emerging from elsewhere in the world, specifically California's Napa Valley. Incredibly, the French selected two American wines as their best and in the process confirmed to winemakers across world the legitimacy of their labours.

"That started things for Napa and California, and after that it also said anywhere in the world where you have the right terroir or the right area of the globe, you can make great wine," says Randall Miller, director of Bottle Shock, which chronicles the efforts of Spurrier and the big winemakers of the Napa Valley during the 1970s. "That event was kind of this great opening and democratisation of wine, which we talk about at the end of the film because for Australia and others we think it was the start."

The world can be thankful Miller and his wife, Jody Savin, made the film. In the hands of a Hollywood studio the "Judgment of Paris" may have been portrayed as yet another rousing achievement in modern America's imperialism.

Miller laughs. "Yes, the movies that I like are the English movies, like Brassed Off or Billy Elliot, those are the kind of heroic successes I like to see. A couple of critics have called it 'Rocky for wine aficionados'. Well, the first Rocky wasn't bad, it's the other ones that were really bad."

As it is, Bottle Shock is a tempered, respectful film with a surprisingly strong cast and look for a $US5 million ($7 million) independent feature. Alan Rickman stars as Spurrier and Bill Pullman as struggling Californian winemaker Jim Barrett. Dennis Farina, Eliza Dushku, Freddy Rodriguez, Australian Rachael Taylor and the man about to play Captain Kirk in the new Star Trek movie, Chris Pine, also star.

Miller tempered the American victory by investing in the characters, as you would with such a solid cast, and pointing out the French were confused by the outcome rather than defeated by it. The event grew quickly in consequence because it told the world not so much that it could defeat the French winemaking tradition but compete with the French winemakers. After all, the Napa wines, specifically Barrett's Chateau Montelana, were being made in the French style.

Nevertheless, Bottle Shock has yet to find a French distributor, despite playing to generally warm reviews in the US, here, Britain and Europe. "I don't know what it is about," Miller says, laughing. "They don't like it? What's going on over there?"

The film had attracted controversy elsewhere before being shown at the Sundance film festival last year. Some in the wine industry, particularly Spurrier, were intrigued as to how prominent sections of the trade would be portrayed.

Spurrier sold the film rights to his life and was trying to shepherd another film into production. He disparaged Miller's project, which had the (initially) confident backing of father and son Jim and Bo Barrett, before they too became nervous of the portrayal. Their fears were overcome, but Spurrier cited defamation after seeing a script and threatened to sue.

He didn't and won't. Miller believes Spurrier realises the film can only help him.

"He's now more well-known than he was before and his price on the lecture circuit's going to go up," he says.

Miller was careful not to disparage the wine buff or show elements of his personal life. "We were very careful," he says, because ultimately "he's a hero". "Honestly, it was a small event and he didn't realise what he was doing," Miller says. "Basically, it was a publicity stunt (for his struggling Paris wine stores Les Caves de la Madeleine and L'Academie du Vin) that has these gigantic, worldwide repercussions."

Admittedly, at one point it would have been tough for Spurrier, being a Brit living in Paris, having opened the wine country to such inspection, but Spurrier's subsequent recollections of the event have been much rosier. The wine store owner merely objects to suggestions it was an ad hoc stunt, not some well-considered statement.

The question remains, though: How could the result of a blind taste test be contrived?

Miller is fond of the Barretts who remain, at heart, men of the land who made something of the Napa Valley in the '70s. At the time, there was "a lot of pot, a lot of drinking and a lot of carousing going on".

The depiction of Jim, even in what is a light drama, is relatively harsh, while his son Bo is portrayed as an aimless teenage pants man. "They're still as much fun as they ever were, but now they go to Sothebys and swish and spit," Miller says. Miller, too, has partaken of a little swishing and spitting himself as Bottle Shock has played across theworld.

"After this movie people are giving us wine to try, and we are completely spoiled."

The taste of the zeitgeist is also helping, Miller adds. The wine documentary Mondovino; Sideways, Alexander Payne's popular comedy set in the Napa Valley; and a raft of lifestyle programs on the subject have softened the audience for wine stories.

"It's weird, I read that wine now is becoming a drink of a lot of 20-somethings, and it never was," he says. "We just got fortunate we picked to tell this story at this particular time because it had a little bit of a wave we picked up on."

The director and producer most recently of Nobel Son and Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School laughs wryly. "We've certainly picked up other stories that did not have waves," he says.