Bottle Shock

Really nice little movie.

I don’t think it’s going to take the country by storm–it’d need suicidal actors, bloodbaths and wicked-evil folk to do that–and it’s not really into deep, mind-rending gouts of insight. But it does supply a couple of my favorite underrated actors, Bill Pullman and Alan Rickman, a bit of microhistory I’m personally interested in, and a lot of charm.

Bottle Shock tells the story of how the California winemaking industry, more specifically the Napa Valley chateaus, burst on the international scene in the 70s, seriously denting the French reputation for invincibly superior wines. A British wine merchant in Paris, anxious to ingratiate himself with French wine power brokers, staged a blind tasting between French and California wines with some of the best French noses around…and the Californians won.

It’s a movie, so it’s a bit sexed up and caricatured. The California winemakers weren’t that hickish and dopey, and the French probably weren’t that overbearingly dumb, but hey–it’s fun. If you google “judgement of paris wine,” you’ll pull up the real story, including a great Slate article by Mike Steinberger and an even better story from the Chronicle.

I was growing up in California’s Central Valley when this took place, which, by the way, produces more wine, seriously GOOD wine, than Napa. Agriculture’s the heart of the economy there–heck, it’s the brain, skin, pancreas, liver and stomach, too–and grapes are a huge part of that.

I hung out with aggie kids, and we knew stuff about grapes. Thompson seedless? Pfui–good for raisins. We could tell the difference between a Zinfandel grape and a Chardonnay (not exactly hard), a Rielsing from a Sauvignon Blanc (which is tougher). The Big Fresno Fair staged a blind grape tasting contest for kids and I used to do pretty well, get about 75% of them right…but the kids who lived in the vineyards nailed every one, every time.

The Gallo marketing machine, and the UFW boycott of Gallo wines (which tarred other wineries with the same brush whether they deserved it or not) had pretty much overshadowed the fact that California was making good wine. More to the point, UC Davis and Cal State Fresno were systematically plowing through the time-honored traditions of winemaking and distinguishing good practice from superstition, which laid the foundation for a massive upswing in wine quality around the world.

So when Stags Leap and Chateau Montelena beat out some of the grandest vintages in France, it was a huge vindication not just of Napa, but of California’s ag science programs. Even if you didn’t drink wine it was a big deal, and the grape folk at Fresno State couldn’t wipe the smiles off their faces for months.

And a few years later, when I was debating whether to move to Washington DC and become a tech journalist or up to Napa to become a publicist for a winery…the results of that little French competition made it a much harder decision.

Anyway, good movie on many counts, and worth a look.