Two new movies about the 1976 Paris tasting which Hollywood will not let the French forget. No doubt encouraged by the sleeper success of Sideways these new movies will probably not receive the same critical acclaim – judging by this article in the Toronto Globe and Mail by Beppi Crosariol.
Wine connoisseurs - I call them cons
BEPPI CROSARIOL
bcrosariol@globeandmail.comJuly 23, 2008
It was the taste-off that turned wine upside down.
In 1976, an esteemed all-French jury gathered in Paris for a blind tasting to compare eight of France’s greatest wines against a dozen upstarts from California. In an upset worthy of Hollywood, the United States trounced France, winning top honours in both the red and white categories.
Now, Hollywood has finally found its way to the story. Not one but two films based on the so-called Judgment of Paris will duke it out for attention this year. Bottle Shock, a rollicking comedy-drama based on true events that stars Alan Rickman, opens in Toronto on Aug. 6 and is slated to roll out to theatres across the country later in the summer. The second film, Judgment of Paris, based on the official story by the only journalist to attend the Paris tasting, Time magazine’s George Taber, is due later this year.
The event’s significance has predictably been interpreted the same way ever since: California had vaulted its way into the wine stratosphere. True. But if there’s justice, the films will also be a reminder - in these boom times for wine snobbery - of a message far more overdue…..
Ending with…
……Ironically, Bottle Shock perpetuates that superhuman-taster myth even as the factual part of the story undermines it. In one pivotal, fictional scene, Gustavo, a Mexican-American cellar hand employed by Chateau Montelena, wows a crowded Napa barroom by identifying the legendary 1947 Cheval Blanc, a red Bordeaux, in an impromptu brown-bag challenge.
So, let me get this straight: A spunky American kid can nail the nuances of great French terroir in a blind tasting when an esteemed panel of seasoned European experts can’t?
Apparently, 32 years after French arrogance got its comeuppance in the Judgment of Paris, wine jingoism is alive and well and living in America.
I loved the movie, I saw it at Sundance this year, and I was just one of the crowd who loved this movie…it’s coming out August 6th in some theaters, and August 15th in others. I loved the movie, you can check out more about it at http://www.bottleshockthemovie.com