Hollywood & Wine
So proud is California of the success of its wines in “The Judgment of Paris” in 1976 that the state legislature passed a resolution declaring it a “historic event” and there’s a display in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington that includes bottles from the winning vintage.
This is one of the many facts you'll learn in Bottle Shock, a film by Randall Miller that opened in August. The Judgment of Paris was a tasting of the finest wines of Bordeaux and Burgundy pitted - blind - against Napa's best, with the creme de la creme of France's wine critics and sommeliers doing the judging. California won both best red and best white, surprising everybody. But the film also includes a number of fictions, which make for a more turbocharged story, but which blur the truth that the wine geek seeks: here's a summary of a few discrepancies.
Alan Rickman as Stephen Spurrier, the British wine merchant who organized the California vs. France challenge. Spurrier claims he found the portrayal "deeply insulting" - and I have it on good authority that Spurrier is in fact "the nicest guy you'd ever want to meet".
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As films go, a wine tasting doesn’t seem the most compelling subject matter, but the minute the opening credits roll, with a low altitude flyover of Napa Valley vineyards on a sunny day, you want to be there.
The focus is on the winning white, a chardonnay from Chateau Montelena (the 2006 is currently available at the LCBO for $44.95). Napa is Hicksville, USA, the cast is Hollywood hot, and the French are elegant snobs: everything is exaggerated. The camera lingers rather less on el patron Jim Barrett (Bill Pullman) than on his studly blond son, the 18 or so year old Bo (Chris Pine). They’re both real people, as is Gustavo Brambila, the Mexican-American field hand/winemaker with wine in his blood played by Six Feet Under and Ugly Betty star Freddy Rodriguez.
But in Hollywood, hot dudes need hot chicks, so an intern winemaker called Sam (the extremely beautiful Rachel Taylor) is conjured up – cue confusion at the introduction of a girl called Sam into the macho world of the winery. Also invented is a sassy bartender of Coyote Ugly quality (Eliza Dushku), who seems to be the only person working the local bar, the scene of a straight-outta-Deliverance crowd betting against Gustavo being able to identify wines blind. Sassy Bartender throws a curveball in the form of a 1947 Cheval Blanc amidst the Cali cabs, which Gustavo effortlessly identifies. Percentage possibility of either the bottle being available or a Napa field hand identifying it: zero.
Not bad dad and hunky son: Bill Pullman and Chris Pine as Barrett pere et fils on the Chateau Montelena property with a truck that looks a lot older than the 70s.--------------------------------
Just as Spurrier is about to fly back to Paris, a production mishap causes Chateau Montelena's prize-winning chardonnay to turn brown in the bottles (the "bottle shock"). It gets thrown out, then recovers its whiteness. Sassy Bartender to the rescue: she buys it all from the Mexicans taking it to the dump and gives it back, but not before pulling together a little blind tasting. Oddly enough, neither Bo nor Gustavo – who, um, made the wine – is able to identify it. But hey, it goes on to glory in Paris after some no-doubt made-up difficulties at the airport.
The film is easy on the eye and fun, with non-OTT 70s music and fashion hitting the right notes. The Stephen Spurrier character is played marvellously by Alan Rickman as a careworn snob with a failing wine store in Paris and a rent-a-wreck on his Napa visit. Everyone else’s vehicle seems to be falling apart too, or they are unable to afford gas (so much for the good old days, fuel wise). The travails of Stephen Spurrier and his seat-of-the-pants approach to organizing the wine tasting in Paris provide more comic relief and tension and ring truer, even as Spurrier’s fictional American “friend,” with a penchant for loud suits, free wine samples and the issuance of prescient advice, grates.
The panel of French snobs is a delight, the various snatches of comments from them apparently verbatim, based on the Time magazine journalist George Taber’s notes. They are frequently wrong in their appraisals, but oh-so-confident. You can read Taber's original 1976 Time Magazine article on the tasting here, and smile when he warns, of the winning wines, "they are in short supply even in California and rather expensive ($6 plus)".
In the end this is a feel-good film – wine tasting is serious and it matters and this is based on a true story, but there's a lot of fiction added to improve what would have otherwise been a big yawn for most people.
Think of it as a fun summer movie that happens to be about wine. Get into the pretty California landscape and pretty California people, and cock a snook at France while you’re at it, even though the only opinions that mattered were... French.
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Want to see a preview? Visit the Bottle Shock site.
Want to know what Stephen Spurrier, throwing his weight behind the rival film on the same subject, called "Judgment of Paris", said about Bottle Shock? Click here and either read the article about the Sundance preview or just scroll down to the "Have Your Say" section.
Want to know more about the tasting and its follow up? Read Slate's Mike Steinberger on the 30th anniversary of the Judgment of Paris.
