Flicks and Flights: Love Wine

The Flick: "Love Wine" directed by Mark McNabb, starring Tara Goudreau and Daneen Boone

The Flight: Narramata Bench Fortified Wine, Pelee Island Pinot Noir,

It's hard not to include this film in our Flicks and Flights series as the central plot is certainly about wine: a young woman inherits a family-owned winery and must fulfill contractual obligations to make love on the grapes at first harvest (yes, literally, make love on the grapes). However, I must warm you what you're getting yourself into if you decide to rent or otherwise seek-out this film. Simply put, it's bad, really bad. Even the "so bad it's good" novelty wears off about 45 minutes into the film as the oh-my-god giggles transition to mouth-open-aghast embarrassment for all parties involved including the many Pelee Island locals who undoubtedly hadn't read the script before signing up to be apart of such a poorly executed film.

Beyond the amateur acting and direction, it's the very concept of Love Wine that is so silly it becomes insulting to one's intellect. Notions like pouring one's passion into the production of wine should remain a parable. It's one thing to romanticize the craft of winemaking and compare it to an act of love. It's another to actually create a plot around the physical execution of said grape-christening. Surely it's against any number of agricultural codes (one would hope). In any case, the plot is fairly predictable once put in motion and meanders from one silly situation to another until the inevitable "happy ending". 

The Love Wine Drinking Game:

1. Finish the bottle of Fortified Wine... Before the film starts. Seriously, you're gonna need a significant buzz to survive the world of well-meaning-but-completely-clueless-amateur-hour-filmmaking that is Love Wine.
2. Take a sip of Pinot Noir every time… You grab for the remote to fast-forward through an awkward "acting" moment or extended dialog sequence.
3. Finish the bottle of Pinot Noir… When you start to get sick at the thought of actually drinking a glass of wine that was made from grapes that came in contact with the naked body parts of strangers (and all their various bodily secretions) before arriving at your lips. Disgusting.

- Liam Carrier ©copyright 2012 IconWines.ca

Flicks and Flights: Sideways

The Flick: "Sideways" directed by Alexandre Payne, starring Paul Giamotti and Thomas Haden Church

The Flight: Santa Barbara County Pinot Noir, Santa Rita Hills Pinot Noir, Pommard 1er Cru Pinot Noir, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru Merlot Blend

The central theme of the film, male bonding and the good and bad behaviour it produces, could just have as easily been linked to sports, cars or any other muse that elicits emotional devotion. It just so happens that the author decided to structure the plot around wine and its practical (winery visits) and romantic application (personifying varietal characters). Yes, the granddaddy of all wine-related films could have had any number of different subjects as its plot catalyst. As wine lovers, we couldn't be happier that he chose wine.

The story needs little introduction for folks who are already very familiar with the plot, quotable phrases like "I'm not drinking any fucking Merlot!" and the surprise effect the film had on the wine industry upon release (worldwide Merlot sales are still in recovery). We love this film because it aptly conveys how wine lovers view wine as more than just a tasty drink. It reflects the notion that it is a living thing which deserves a unique language with which to discuss its infinite intricacies and the film does just that, accurately and with humour, intelligence and heart.

Yes, some hardcore vinos objected to the fact that Miles is constantly drinking to intoxication but these folks miss the point that this detail is character based and not a thinly veiled pronouncement by the author that wine appreciation is just an over-intellectualized vehicle for getting drunk. In Vino Veritas, and in the movie Sideways Miles uses wine to expose and communicate the sadness in his life; his inner truth revealed.

It's hard to imagine anyone integrating the language of wine more intricately than its seamless inclusion into the Sideways script - simply put, the best wine related film of all time.

The Sideways Drinking Game:

1. Take a sip of Santa Barbara County Pinot Noir every time... Miles vocalizes an over-elaborate tasting note.
2. Take a sip of Pommard 1er Cru every time... Miles is seen nursing a hang-over.
3. Finish the bottle of Saint-Emilion Grand Cru when... Miles hilariously, albeit ironically, disparages Merlot, one of the main varieties in his beloved Cheval Blanc from Bordeaux's Left Bank commune of Saint-Emilion.
4. Finish the bottle of Santa Rita Hills Pinot Noir when... Miles and Maya speak of their love for Pinot and wine in general (though we know they are really describing themselves to one another in this poignant scene).

- Liam Carrier ©copyright 2012 IconWines.ca

Flicks and Flights

Our "Flicks and Flights" series has been created to celebrate films that feature wine as a central theme or plot catalyst. Some films will be very familiar and perhaps others will be new to even the most hardcore of vinos. All are worth a viewing if only for the excuse to open a tasty flight of accompanying wines.

Bottle Shock

Sideways

Love Wine
A Good Year

Year of the Comet
and more...

The Flicks: There aren’t truly enough to call it a genre, in fact, wine related movies are few and far between. Rarer still is the wine related movie worth watching a second time. This, however, hasn’t stopped me from searching the nether regions of IMDB for films that use wine to define a character’s motivation or help further a plot and with a few carefully calibrated PVR settings and nefarious downloads later the above list has been researched for your viewing and drinking pleasure.

The Flights: Most of the time we’ve gone for wine suggestions based on the appropriate region or terroir that should be tasted rather than recommending specific producers. Find the matching wine available in your area at the price point you want to pay. In some cases, specific labels that are widely available have been suggested to enhance the tasting experience and may be worth stretching the budget to acquire.

Your best bet on sourcing locally available wines from the regions we’ve suggested is to take the list into your nearest fine wine shop and ask for help and recommendations of similar wines. If you have a suggestion for another (or a new) wine related film that we should cover, please add a comment below.

Happy viewing and tasting!

 - Liam Carrier ©copyright 2012 IconWines.ca

Flicks and Flights: Bottle Shock

The Flick: "Bottle Shock" directed by Randall Miller, starring Chris Pine and Alan Rickman

The Flight: Grgich Hills Estate California Chardonnay, Meursault 1er Charmes White Burgundy, Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Artemis California Cabernet, Clos du Marquis Red Bordeaux

Bottleshock is a fictionalized account of the factual events which lead to a Californian Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon outscoring Burgundy Grand Cru and Bordeaux First Growth wines at the Steven Spurrier organized competition now known as the “Judgment of Paris”. This, now mythical tasting from 1976, announced the arrival of quality New World wines and challenged the presumption of French wine dominance. Long is the list of historical inaccuracies that litter the movie’s plot including the complete omission of winemaker Mike Grgich, who was instrumental in creating the winning Chardonnay from Chateau Montelena, and in the introduction of Wine Sharking where winery workers dupe unsuspecting local bar patrons into betting against one’s ability to correctly guess the vintage, label and blend of a series of wines tasted blind.

The plot intertwines Spurrier’s conception of the tasting and trip to California to acquire the appropriate challengers with the strained father-son relationship of winery co-owner Jim Barrett and his hippy-living son Beau. Spurrier weaves the kooky world of 1970’s Napa valley winery personalities while father and son learn to communicate in an effort to save the beloved family business and succeed in Paris. Fairly formulaic.

The film suffers from a poorly paced and conceived script that would have been wiser to stick to the trials and triumphs of the actual events (as captured in the book Judgment of Paris by George M. Taber) rather than focus on made-up characters and wine hijinks like the aforementioned Wine Sharking. However, for wine lovers, watching Alan Rickman as Spurrier wax poetic about the intricacies and delights of a great glass of wine will save the film, mostly. He chews-up the scenery with his reserved and inherently snooty Britishness, pointed speech and elaborated diction – ok, I’m describing most Alan Rickman roles. Whatever. This one is about wine! Rent it and follow along with...

The Bottle Shock Drinking Game:

1. Take a sip of California Chardonnay every time…The editor cuts to sweeping helicopter shots of vineyards in an effort to connect poorly paced scenes of the two competing narratives.
2. Take a sip of White Burgundy every time…You see an iconic Citroen DS or a chain-smoking old man with a baret in a scene to reinforce the setting is in France.
3. Take a sip of California Cabernet every time…The film overreaches with an awkward social comment on gender or race inequality in 1970's Napa Valley by way of its motley crew of society challenging misfits.
4. Finish the bottle of red Bordeaux once…You realize that, despite the tittle of the film, the key, plot-moving wine fault is never attributed to the unsettling caused by the vibrations of transportation, aka actual “bottle shock”. Whoops!

- Liam Carrier ©copyright 2012 IconWines.ca