If you haven’t seen this, I would definitely recommend it…Just know that you are watching something that has been crafted by a filmmaker with a certain view of things. While it’s masterfully edited to show that point of view, some of the folks in the film seem like they don’t need a lot of help to come off poorly. Some of the moments are so deliciously cringeworthy. For example…
Michel Rolland insulting his client (kirwan) to her face
Come to think of it any scene with Michel Rolland in it
The phrase “funk ceramic artist”.
Sheri Staglin’s comment about giving the pickers T-shirts
The Etcharts of Argentina’s and their racial views
James Suckling (any time he opens his mouth)
Bernard Magrez on child rearing
Grower Aimé Guibert who had spent the first part of the film patting himself on his virtuous back about how he stood tall against the Mondavis and their evil global wine empire only to later extol the virtues of the Magrez, oops I mean Depardieu, led global wine empire.
All in all, it was fascinating and delicious if not particularly balanced.
I knew nothing about any of those people when I watched it the first time and thought it was really good. Then after I got into wine a little more, I went back and watched it again and saw it in again from a different perspective. Interesting and fun regardless.
It is funny, but I see much that is true and needed to be said in the movie, but like Roy, I find Nossiter’s style hard to stomach. First and foremost, there is the matter of his ego on his sleeve as he moves effortlessly among the 53 languages he wants you to know that he has mastered while letting you know what an important family he was born into. And there can be no doubt that he came to the table with an agenda. Or several. I find his Marxist class warfare in the vineyards, or vineyard owner as plantation master, or whatever trip he was working in with the Mexican workers, sloppily done and over the top, even if it is true that vineyard workers are oppressed and worse. If there was a movie to be made on that subtopic, it should have been undertaken separately. Likewise the anti-globalization subplot.
On the other hand, I laugh at the Parker/Rolland apologists that piss and moan about Parker being set up, and Rolland being ambushed Mike Wallace-style, and the Mondavis being made to look foolish. What crap. Parker played his Emperor of Wine schtick to the hilt. Rolland could not possibly have spent that much time on camera, and said the absurd and sometimes offensive things that he did, and expect anyone to believe that he is a great guy who was misrepresented, or perhaps a victim of Nossiter’s antics in the cutting room. The man is one large, greedy, self-important turd. As to the Mondavis, Bob Mondavi, may he rest in peace, was both legend and fool. He let his boys piss away an iconic Napa institution by adoption of an outrageously stupid business strategy and by his tolerance of the same sort of infighting that marked Bob Mondavi’s dysfunctional relationship with his brother and the rest of his family. He deserved a better legacy, but had the opportunity to control that. Many of the lesser players appeared to be French or Napa baloons ripe for the pricking. In short, I feel like the wrong guy did a righteous job (mostly) in Mondovino, but I cannot say that I would look forward to a sequel or prequel…
Around the time I saw the movie, I was in Grand Liquors in Astoria, Queens, which has an unequaled selection of wines from obscure corners of the earth. Armenian wines, they had seven or eight. Uruguay? They got it.
On both an Armenian and a Brazilian bottle were proudly emblazoned, “Michel Rolland, consulting oenologist.”
I found it fascinating to see all these folks interviewed, but I thought it was a train wreck of a movie. Though, to be fair, it was cut down from an eight or nine-hour TV series, so it’s surprising if it lost some coherence in the process.
I really enjoyed getting to see the interviews, but I agree with Bill, it was so heavy handed. I might be misremembering it, but wasn’t there some interview with Rolland in a car, from a weird camera angle that you could tell was just trying to pick up billboards in the background (i.e., visually associate him with crass commercialism)?
Whether I’m misremembering that or not, it seems like so many of the choices we done to emphasize his viewpoint, whereas if he would have layed off and just done serious interviews, the same points would have been clear.
But getting to see interviews with people like Rosenthal is a treat.
Interesting aside. Several years ago I posted my distaste for Rolland on eBob. You would have thought I insulted honest Abe Lincoln. I must have recieved 50 hate-posts.
(Fortunately, my dear, I don’t really give a damn!)
There was a reasonable message to the film, and comedy value to some of the interviews, but the film totally infuriated me largely due to Nossiter’s inordinate egomania. He came out with a book that covered much the same ground and I reproduce the last paragraph of my review of it here:
Wines of individual character and compelling style need a much less self-obsessed flag carrier than Nossiter; the man is stupefyingly odious.
I remember at the time that I was mildly irritated at the film.
Much maligned, Rolland was awesome, bigger than life, a buffoon I want to party with. I don’t chase his style, but overall I do really like his wines.
I’ve not seen it recently, but from memory I have an overall fondness for the movie, great entertainment, and it would be super useful for anyone learning about French wine and all the drama that it is.
I watched both the movie and the TV series, but my conclusion that Parker and Rolland were not set up, ambushed or otherwise abused comes from the (seemingly endless!) TV series. Nossiter’s ego and obvious political agenda are still there in the series, but I am not sure that ANY editing was done. It seemed as though Nossiter believed that editing the raw footage to make a movie was depriving the world of too much of his brilliance!
Nossiter was actually kind to Parker. He did capture for posterity the farting of Parker’s bulldog, didn’t he?
I thought the editing was great…The editing (interspersing clips from various characters) took the place of a narrator and showed the film stylistically as a sharp contrast to a similar ideologue filmmaker; Michael Moore.
They both have an opinion that they want you to come away with, but Nossiter’s style made the film seem less heavy handed.
Closed circuit to David… Is Nossiter more stupefyingly odious than Mollydooker Shiraz?
I’ve actually been to St. Saturnin, and let me tell you what’s there…NOTHING!!!
Good freaking job. Actually, this is a pretty special place. Not only is Mas de Daumas Gassac there, but also Granges des Peres and the new kid on the block, La Peira en Damaisela. Fabulous terroir. Mondavi was really on to something. This could have been really put on the map, but instead, it’s a quaint, quiet little town that most people will never even know exists.
I think this whole Rolland thing is blown way out of proportion. He is a genuinely nice guy, and may have the best palate in the world. Sure, he does roll around in some high priced cars with a driver. That’s b/c folks are willing to shelf out for his services. And he tastes wines all day, it’s actually a smart plan!
What about Parker’s palate? Or maybe you don’t need to mention Parker, since he and Rolland share the best palate in the world. And it is nice of Rolland to make wines especially for the greatest palate in the world all over the world, most tasting pretty much alike. I am with you on the “good plan”, however. He does very well separating fools and their money!
I have had plenty of wine that he makes that doesn’t taste like “Bob wine”. Bon Pasteur regularly gets low ratings from Bob, and that’s Rolland’s property!
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