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Bottle Shock, The Movie: Wine with a Hollywood Accent

Posted 08/16/2008 at 10:54 AM by Cathy

Reviews of Bottle Shock have not been kind.

I can see why.

The movie is full, painfully full, of clichés.

The utmost liberty has been taken with the phrase, "Based on a true story," so that the "true" part is practically meaningless.

And all sorts of stereotypes, from the flower-child free-love seventies to the Mexican "hombre" laborer to the stuffed-shirt law firm, are brought to larger-than-life.

All of those objections are duly noted. If you go to the movie, don't expect anything close to an accurate retelling of the 1976 competition in Paris of French and California wines. And pay no attention to the tired, overused descriptions of the wines or what it takes to make a good Chardonnay.

Then maybe, just maybe, you can enjoy the movie a little.

Watching a movie in a theater is a lot like drinking a glass of wine. It is not something you have to do. If you do it, you do it for entertainment, for pleasure, for the chance that it might make you feel good. Or at least that it will make you think.

Here are some things about Bottle Shock that might make you feel good:
• Camerawork that hides the flaws
• Sweeping vistas
• Gorgeous scenery (we're talking about Napa and Paris here after all)
• Dennis Farina giving the don't-bullshit-me look
• Beautiful people (you knew there would be). Short shorts, knee-high boots. Dark hair, darker eyes. Zero body fat.

And here are some things that might make you think (but no promises):
• Why well-made Chardonnay might turn brown. And what makes it turn back.
• Why how many times you rack a wine matters.
• "You're a snob. It limits you."
• The irony of a Mexican worker lecturing an American landowner about making wine to beat the French.

Say you did in fact read the book on which this movie is allegedly based; that would be Judgment of Paris: California vs France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting that Revolutionized Wine by George Taber (who is himself brought to life, by the way, in a not exactly flattering kind of way). At one point you'll just give up thinking about the movie in relation to the book and realize the movie is simply its own thing.

It is its own thing. With a Hollywood accent.

Why do we go to the movies anyway?

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About the Author

Cathy Huyghe
Cathy Huyghe

Cathy Huyghe writes about drinking wine every day in the Boston area. She finds the quirky characters, the after-hours events, and the surprising stories that make up Boston's vibrant local wine scene. But no matter where she is, what she's doing, or who she's with, she mostly just wants to drink the stuff.

Her first restaurant gig was at Chez Panisse, when she knocked on the kitchen's back door and asked if she could work there. She's also worked for Jean-Pierre Vigato in Paris and Thomas Keller in Las Vegas. She went to graduate school at Harvard (twice), and her writing has run in Boston magazine, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, Edible Boston, and on Nevada Public Radio and Grist.org.

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