I just saw this flick for the first time and was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on it?
I have watched it a few times now and it really undermines its whole premise by the manner in which it comes across as a total hatchet job against Parker and the riper style of winemaking. [suicide.gif]
The translations appear to be somewhat innaccurate in some cases?
There is a dialogue there but it really does a poor job addressing it.
Sorry if this is old news.
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This usually finds divisions.
It was very one sided in the political sense. Portrays one type of wine as killing the other unfairly and unjustly. Makes for great romance and playing low brow to the Gilman crowd but it doesn’t really add anything to the discussion. What about all wineries being sinking or swimming on how good their product is? I like all styles of wine but they still have to be good one way or another. I’ve tried lots of very praised wines from both sides of the fence that left me shaking my head. Sometimes people just want to apologize for a certain style of wine whether or not that particular wine is actually of exceptional quality.
I watched it not long after it was released and found it disappointing overall since there was such an obvious agenda.
However, I did find the focus on Michel Rolland entertaining.
Parts were boring and forced … almost hyperbole, but I found other parts highly entertaining. As a complete piece of work it is very weak but like I said there were parts I really enjoyed.
J
I’ve watched it a few times and seem to always find something (often innuendo) that I had previously missed.
One thing to take away from it is its uncanny ability to double as a treatise for “How to Edit Film to Get What You Really Want.” I usually watch it looking through through a cut-out of a keyhole, and frequently have to shower after watching. That said, the hatchet work is amazing!
I am not sure if it is in the bonus footage or the main movie, but it first seems to go out of the way to make Parker look like a bad guy when he suspects/writes that the wine a winemaker pours him might not be the same as that which gets bottled and to the consumer. Totally bashes Parker, then towards the end there is an interview with a fraud agent in France with the gist of the interview being that French winemakers are illegally adulterating their wines to get Parker scores and misleading the public thereby. To the effect that its Parkers fault. This seems totally juxtaposed with earlier bashing Parker as the consumer advocate for suspecting he is getting some wine other than the wine from the estate by pointing out that the French fraud enforcement is basically saying it is happening. Hatchet job is right.
Then the whole Neal Rosenthal(?) spiel about oak taking away the soul of the wine, seems juxtaposed with Aubert deVillaine’s “noble” spiel defending terroir. (Presuming the claims regarding the amount of new oak used by DRC are true…!
Hey, how about those Staglins? One of the most foretelling moments is Nossiter arriving at their house and immediately making conversation with one of the staff - in Spanish. What a hail fellow well met, and genuine man of the people! [rolleyes.gif]
I can see why many don’t like the movie or find it biased. It obviously is. That said, to those of us that hate spoofed wines, this movie hits the nail on the head and in some instances ridicules the wine industry in its contemporary form. I don’t know what Nossiter edited out or in, but his bias is mine, as well, so I naturally take less offense to his movie. That said, I don’t advocate one style. If people want to drink spoofed oak and fruit bombs, by all means go ahead.
Steffen, I too appreciate finesse and tradition and unspoofilated wines. That said, with this movie it was the messenger, rather than the message, that needed to excerise a little less character assassination. In retrospect, however, this is probably no worse a hatchet job than “Bowling for Columbine” was to Dick Clark or Charleton Heston. Politics makes us do screwy thing to people.
What is spoofed oak? Is it a certain percentage of new oak? Does the rule apply across regions or only to some? (I.e. is Burgundy exempt from spoofalation allegations on “grandfathered” or other unstated but apparent(?) grounds?)
I ask because some years ago I made a decision to heat my home with a wood stove to be more personally sensitive to seasonal and daily temperature. I burn oak, including sometimes old wine barrels. On hoary winter nights when I open the stove door to reload, I get a nice hit of cinnamon and asian spice, which I have heard some/many(?) describe as
Vosne Romanee “terroir” signature… Is oak considered “terroir” in some regions and not in others?
(By the way Aubert de Villaine’s eloquent spiel on how only(?) historic vineyards can have terroir made me want to vomit.) [heat.gif]
Spoofed oak, means someone made fun of oak, maybe in a movie like this. Picture a barrel with arm holes and no heads. That’s spoofing oak. However, what is actually meant by Steffen is “…spoofed**,** oak and fruit bombs,…”
As to the A. deVillaine comment, I’m surprised at your delicate stomach. You can [apparently] choke down a gopher, squirrel, (fill in the small rodent), yet a comment on terroir makes you ralph? Listen, you have history. Ergo, you are historic! Voilà!
Eric nailed it. I need to work on my punctuation.
SP
The problem I have with the movie is that the filmmaker had a political agenda going in. When making a documentary, it usually behooves the filmmaker to approach the subject matter with (at least) the intention of objectivity and to allow the material to determine the thesis. But with this film, Nossiter seems to have had a preconceived idea of what he was looking for and – surprise! – he found it.
My thoughts exactly.
Well that and this is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to effing long.