I loved Somm 2 as well for the reasons David pointed out. Did they drink some fancy wines that I will never consider rationale (for me) to purchase? Sure. But I felt that was a small part of the overall story.
I always find it so funny that people focus on “best” with wine. You never hear them do this with people (E.G. “Who is the best person you love?” “Who was the best person you met at the party?” “Who is the best person in the world?”). As with people, there are lots of great ones, each with its own merits, flaws, quirks, outstanding characteristics, special appeal, etc. There may be certain occasions on which you would enjoy being with one more than another, but that could easily change on another occasion. Yet with wine, everyone wants to rank them and declare a “best”…When it comes to people, I guess everyone instinctively understands that there are enough sweet, fun, intelligent and good people in the world that it makes no sense to “allocate” your love and focus on just one individual.
Interesting enough I guess. I’ve been around enough blind tastings with very talented winemakers many times over the years. That tasting of the Pinots seemed pretty business as usual.
John, well said!
The blind tastings in Somm 3 were instructive, in that professionals had widely divergent opinions. It was neat to see Steven Spurrier say that a highly pedigreed Burgundy was not what he wanted in Pinot Noir.
While I found the larger Pinot tasting to be a bit scattershot, it did still end with interesting results.
Let’s face it, most of us would have loved to be in the room when either of the blind tastings were happening.
On the wines from Somm 2, I have a different view than some have expressed. OK, so maybe I have not tasted 1962 Trimbach Clos Ste. Hune, but I have drank other vintages. I have not had 1966 Mondavi Reserve Cabernet, but I have had other vintages. Same goes for Dom Ruinart vintage Champagne, Chave Hermitage, and Penfolds Grange. Even the DRC was not some unobtanium wine (as it was not La Tache or RC). Not sure why picking legendary vintages of meaningful wines is an issue.
Jason,
First off, thanks for popping in here! Curious how you heard about this board and from whom?
Second, and pardon me for my ignorance, but have you directed all 3 or is this the first one? And how did this film ‘evolve’ differently than the other ones, from inception to final filming?
Last, who is your ‘target audience’ when crafting these films and what are you trying to ‘convey’?
Thanks in advance. Cheers!
Hi Jason, thanks for joining in the discussion.
Perhaps part of the letdown for me was the expectation set in the trailer was not met. Had I not watched the trailer, would I have enjoyed the film more? Possibly. But then again, the trailer is what drew me in personally, as I had a connection with both some of the people and the places.
FWIW, despite my critique of Somm 3, I found all of them to be entertaining and a nice view into the world of wine.
My pleasure, there are some really great things to be learned on these boards, I have sort of followed for years, but just decided to pop in. Trust me, no filmmaker thinks everyone will like their movies so no offense taken - honestly this film (part 3) was pretty wild in that we had no idea what was going to happen and sort of had to work backwards in the editing. I hope the message is not that there is a “Best wine”, but I do hope it inspires a conversation.
I have directed, and edited (and produced, and wrote if needed, and slept on floors, and been broke through) all of three of the SOMM films.
Honestly I am not from any kind of wine background and have no idea how the hell I am here on my third wine film - I just made a film about a 94 year old actress who was connected to the mob, and my next film is about sea urchin divers. As a filmmaker I am in love with history and wine is an incredible vessel for that. I don’t know what the target audience is outside of people who are interested in food and wine, but more than that, energy that is out there. I think any good documentary is about energy you didn’t know existed (grizzly man, king of kong, pumping ion) so i just try to capture what is happening, but of course we edit so it ends up being subjective.
I hope this makes any sense hahaha
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For someone that doesn’t have any wine background, you really nailed Somm 2. It is the perfect selection of the great wine regions of the world. And including aged wines is something truly special. FWIW, I opened a 69 Dom Ruinart with a friend while we watched Somm 2. It was amazing (although not as effervescent as in the film, since it wasn’t directly from the cellar).
I understand the take of those who are saying “just enjoy it”, because I will still be ready to fork over my rental fee for as many of these SOMM movies as the Wises make. That being said, as both a wine geek and someone who has worked in film, I have a number of observations/criticisms about SOMM 3.
First of all, I feel the hand of the filmmakers on the scales more in this film than the others. There are always myriad choices made by the filmmakers that are not so apparent, but in SOMM 1, the stakes were real and simple - it was about following 4 characters who were up against a common thing and were going to have definitive outcomes. Arguably it was not really about wine as much as those people and the human interest aspect. In SOMM 2, you had the built-in stories that flowed from the history of the great estates, and the filmmakers had to weave in the somm aspect. Because it was more about the wine, I might’ve enjoyed the sequel even more, though I’m not sure if that was true for non-wine-geek general viewers.
SOMM 3 doesn’t have that same clarity of purpose when it comes to story. You might argue that a good part of the movie is about following the stories of Jancis, Spurrier and Dame, but those are stories with no dramatic tension, and to be honest those stories are undermined a bit by a bit too much hyperbole and screen time spent trying to convince you why each of these three are insanely important. The dramatic tension is left to the Judgment of Pinot subplot but even that has its flaws that undercut its impact. It’s not a true best of the best comparison in my view. Excellent producers from Burgundy chosen, but not grand cru; all young wines chosen, which in a way doesn’t allow for as much separation; the selection of CA and OR pinots made by somms instead of top established wines from those regions. I get that you may need that extra link to somms in recognition that this is not just a film about wine but a SOMM-titled film, but it undercut the significance of the tasting that the results were a bit contrived because of the above choices.
The interesting thing is that the table is set for a SOMM sequel that does match the first film in human interest with real stakes - namely, a doc about the recent nullified exam, the reasons why the leaker did what he did, why the CMS decided to act as they did, and the impact on exam takers and their ultimate outcomes. Unfortunately it may be a movie that is difficult if not impossible to make because the key people may not have any interest in talking about any of it for a film (though I think there’s a real opportunity here for the CMS to make clearer why they came to the decisions they did without having to make official pronouncements). It may take people of stature outside the CMS to really talk frankly about what all went down and its implications without fear of blowback from peers.
Since Jason the director is on the thread, here are some nitty things that would bother me if I were on the filmmaking team - not sure if you have an opportunity for re-delivery of the film to digital outlets but there were oddities in the captioning of the film. Two that leap to mind:
-about the D’Angerville, a somm (maybe Arvind?) remarks that it’s Chambollesque I believe, but the caption says Chambordesque. The difference matters.
-Dustin says “premier cru” and the captions say “from your crew”. Felt like there were tons of these maybe less significant errors.
Like I said, I still enjoyed the film but I hope you find some of this helpful, Jason. Appreciate you being willing to be part of the discussion here.
Appreciate you joining in as well. Since you seem open to feedback, I’d love to throw you some from a different perspective…my wife.
First off, my wife really doesn’t know wine, and heavily relies on me for her consumption. She has become a “snob” (some would say, since her taste is getting expensive, and things like Prosecco and Cava no longer work for her), but frankly she has a good pallet for wine.
She really enjoyed Somm since it showed a lot of detail in the day to day life of someone in the business. She thought it was interesting to see the process. Somm 2 didn’t hit her so much as she had the take away of “I’d rather be drinking with them to learn what they appreciate than watching it”. My takeaway was slightly different, as I have lived the good life and gotten to enjoy legendary bottles, so it was fine, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first. Having said that, we both are very much looking forward to Somm 3 since we watched the first two. Interestingly, quite a few of my non-wine educated friends who casually drink wine watched Somm, and thought that it was extremely interesting and they really enjoyed it.
Another movie my wife thought was terrific was Sour Grapes. She loved the “palace intrigue” aspect.
Not a wine movie, but my wife thought Jiro Dreams of Sushi was a like watching paint dry.
I thought this might be helpful since she isn’t a wine person, but does find enjoyment in movies when they tell a great story.
100% agreed. For me Somm 2 was very good and the bar was set so high that Somm 3 was almost bound to disappoint.
My biggest critique of Somm 3 was that I don’t really give a dam that Raj or Spurrier are attempting to make wine/champagne or x,y,z person opened a wine store or wine bar. Give me some more history about the legends or if doing the Pinot comparison break out some big guns and see how they do. As mentioned before, I’d watch an entire installment of Fred Dame blind tasting. Give me more of that!
And also thank you Jason for stopping by! It was still well worth the $5 to watch and I hope you make more Somm’s in the future!
Jason, thanks for sharing some info.
I watched it last night and enjoyed it although the way the blind tasting was handled didn’t come across as very compelling IMO. Not sure what I would do differently. And obviously, there would be so many opinions on wines to be included. For me, I am not sure of anyone who would select Lingua Franca. There are legacy producers and new producers that should have been given the nod. I have never tasted Domaine de La Côte so I can’t comment there but it obviously was compelling to the tasters.
SOMM 4 - All Carole Meridith, all the time.
Just a thought.
Peace,
Jason
+1
Maybe we can turn it into a drinking game. Tip our glasses every time Carole references Tribidrag.
Just watched, its OK but not particularly a fan of those big three they are all fine as individuals but that tasting was way to contrived for me. I mean drinking wines that got you excited 40-50 years ago means that they are probably fading by now, of course they do their best to promote them but it seemed false. I would prefer if the movie focused on real things like 1 & 2 rather than contrived.
Overall though its still fun to watch and im fine with the way its made
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Ever drink 40+ year old Monte Bello? Or Vogue? You might reconsider your statement.
I watched the movie last night. Outside of the winefolly girl, I enjoyed the movie.
David Beuker’s fist post in this thread is correct.
That’s so much bullshit! 
![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
My first real wine was not exotic at all, it was a 1970 Phelan Segur St estephe which i had around 1981, now it was in a good spot right then and while not a wow wine it was sufficiently better than the average plonk to get me into wine. Now it would taste like shit no fruit all dried up and tired. Lets assume Fred has been in wine since 1975, the MB then would be 7 years old, fresh, vibrant and youthful. Now its 50 years old, now im sure its still drinkable and is a lovely experience if you like ultramature wines but dont feed me any crap about a 7 year old MB tasting like a 50 year old
Although it was interesting that the Brits choose the lighter more typical wines and Fred choose the big powerful oak bomb wine. Proving yet again the Brits are sophisticated and classy and that Americans have the tastes of a Yak !1