Watched Bottle Shock last night, and Sideways tonight.
Gotta say, although Sidways was good, and displayed a wide range of emotions;
I liked Bottle Shock better. Probably the non-fiction, pro-American part.
Went looking in the cellar for an Andrew Murray Syrah, but didn’t find it.
I did, however, find a 2014 Joseph Phelps Syrah. That’ll do.
Bottle Shock could have been a great movie if they would have taken it a little more seriously (as I’m sure it was in real life). Way too corny for me.
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Ahhhh, come on now! Bottle shock was a fun movie! And its about wine. And based on a true story. Sure, its not winning any awards…but it’s a good watch!
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I had been meaning to watch this and forgot all about it until I saw this! Watched it tonight. I am a fan! Dead Poet Society meets Sideways
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Gotta respectfully disagree, though it’s been so long I can’t remember exactly why the book was so inferior except that I recall the prose being pretty bad and the writing in general somewhat cringe worthy
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I overwhelmingly prefer Bottle Shock to Sideways. In fact I really disliked Sideways. All of the characters were vile.
And the worst is that they trashed Cab Franc and Merlot then made the whole ending about Cheval Blanc.
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That was the joke
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I’ve always wondered if it was an intentional joke for the wine fans in the audience or a happy accident.
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Possibly a troll they put in for the ‘well ACTUALLY’ crowd
Interestingly, the producers of Sideways apparently recognized the flaw in Miles’ blanket condemnation of merlot and had hoped to call attention to it in the film. A few months ago, W. Blake Gray of the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the producers had originally wanted to use a bottle of Petrus as the treasured wine gathering dust in Miles’ apartment. But Christian Moueix, the chateau’s owner, read the script and decided to pass.
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I always thought of his Merlot comment and his comments about Cab Franc meant to be more of a commentary on Miles than it was on the grapes. After all, his prized bottle of wine was Cheval Blanc. My guess is that they expected a small audience of wine guys to watch the movie who would understand this, but when the movie took off they ended up with millions of people who had never heard of Cheval Blanc.
Cheval Blanc is about 52% Cabernet Franc and 43% Merlot. Parcels - Château Cheval Blanc (chateau-cheval-blanc.com)
I agree. It makes his face when he is drinking it out of a crappy cup much more than that of a sad old alcoholic.
I could read it as either:
- Miles was a smug snob who didn’t actually know anything
- Miles had such disregard for mediocre SBC Merlot & Can Franc precisely because he knew what its apex expression should be
I think the latter is more likely, that he was a Euro-snob AFWE when it came to BDX varieties. But while Merlot and CF can do well under the right circumstances in SBC, Miles was quite rightly attuned to Pinot and, to a lesser extent, Syrah, which do well broadly across the region.
I viewed him as a smug snob with no palate. Remember when Maya explained things to him. Sideways (2/5) Movie CLIP - Miles Misses the Moment (2004) HD (youtube.com)
Also, there was absolutely nothing in the various wines he had over the course of the movie that indicated even in the slightest that he was an AFWE. The one Burg they showed him drinking at dinner was from Laurent, hardly the darling of the AFWE. Moreover, none of the wines at that dinner were even close to being AFWE wines - it took a forest of oak to make these wines. SIDEWAYS - Los Olivos (restaurant scene) (youtube.com)
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Or his ex wife loved merlot
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The first reason I loved the movie was it was just so good. The acting, the plot, the pacing. The fact most of the main characters had flaws.
The second reason it was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me and pushed me out the door of finance and to finally to start all over in wine, at age 38, with no experience except as a collector and message board poster. Just 6 months after I watched the movie for the fourth time (I kept dragging all my friends to it) I was hanging out with Joe Davis (Arcadian) and touring around Santa Barbara wine country. I even stayed in the very hotel room the characters did at the “Windmill Inn”, which was actually a Day’s Inn back then.
I still have a soft-spot for Santa Barbara Wine Country and go down there once a year, also finally making a Pinot from there in 2021.
Although it’s gained a lot of traction in the last 20 years, Santa Barbara wine country is still for me the area with the most long-term upside, especially now that they’ve discovered there is very good potential for Cabernet in Happy Canyon, just 25 minutes from the heart of Pinot land.
Joe offered me a job but he could not pay me, so that did not work out. I moved to Napa 6 months after that and eventually got hired at Quintessa in 2005. I can’t believe it’s been 20 years since that movie came out.
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Roy,
I could not agree more - so much upside potential here and excited to help others discover the area as well . . .
A loss for us here in SBC that you ended up going up North but certainly a gain for the North Coast and for those on this board!
Cheers
I agree, too. I think SB County has some of the most interesting climate and growing conditions in all of CA. Just wish the land prices/fruit prices hadn’t gone up as much, but I’ll continue my exploration there. Last year was the most I ever took from the county, counting 6 different vineyards.