Based on the true story of the Chateau Montelena and a very
famous blind tasting competition that was held in Paris in 1976, Bottle Shock
tells an intriguing story featuring unique characters and personalities. While
not much can be taken from the movie as far as winemaking goes, it was a
comical, interesting story about the famous tasting in Paris.
Going into this film with absolutely no idea what it was
about, I wasn’t expecting the movie to have such a storyline with quirky characters. The film starts out by introducing
Steven Spurrier as a British Sommelier, or as I would like to call it, a wine
snob, living in Paris. While he is very stuck up and confident in what he does,
his business is slowly failing. After his American friend Maurice brings up
that he doesn’t have a diverse wine collection in his shop, Spurrier devises a
brilliant plan in which he will do a blind taste test for wines from all over
the world. Maurice nonchalantly states that California wines will one day get
the recognition they deserve when compared to French wine. With that being
said, Spurrier decides to travel to Napa Valley, California to begin his taste
tests.
Upon arriving in Napa Valley, Spurrier gets a flat tire and
receives help from Californian wine maker, Jim Barrett. During their first
encounter, Spurrier is extremely pretentious and acts as though Jim is below
him. They part ways after his tire has been fixed, but not too long later are
reunited when Spurrier stops at Barrett’s winery as his first stop. Jim is not
so keen on the idea that Spurrier is proposing about his tests, and is much
more hesitant than his wild, care-free son, Bo. Bo, a typical 70s wild child,
believes that this could be the boost that his father’s financially suffering
winery needs to get out of the hole their in.
Everything in the middle of the movie seems to be somewhat
pointless, for example the love saga between Bo Barrett, Sam Fulton and Gustavo
Brambila. Sam Fulton, an intern working at the winery first sparks an
unsuspected romance with wine maker Gustavo Brambila. However, at the end of
the movie, she ends up romancing with Bo again. This part of the movie was
somewhat frustrating to me because it didn’t really seem to add up. Gustavo
ends up getting fired from Chateau Montelena because he has been working on his
own wine behind Jim Barrett’s back. However, there is no closure to his and
Sam’s relationship, and we don’t really see him after he his fired from the
winery until the very end of the movie. Overall, Sam’s role in the movie was
unnecessary, but of course my inner girly-girl enjoyed the love triangle
because everyone was rooting for Sam to finally fall for Bo’s quirky charm.
Although the movie did have a lot of unnecessary story line
to it, there were also quite a few interesting facts to be taken from it as
well. The aspect I found most interesting was the brown wine. Jim Barrett loses
all hope in his winery when his Chardonnay comes out brown. Bo describes the
wine as “Rich, full-bodied…and brown.” While the Chardonnay tasted wonderful,
it had an unappealing brown color that initially deemed the wine undrinkable.
This is perhaps the only time that Sam is useful in this movie. When she sees
the brown wine, she immediately drags Bo to see another wine maker. When they
are describing the brown wine to him, he doesn’t seem surprised and casually
states that the wine must be oxidized. He said that the wine probably tastes
metallic, to which Bo immediately shoots down, saying it tastes fine. Bo
explains that his father is a perfectionist and lets absolutely no oxygen into
the barrels. Once Bo says this, the mysterious and wise winemaker has a moment
of realization and asks if they happened to have brought a bottle with them.
Upon taking his first sip, he laughs amazed at what he is tasting and states
that he has read about wine like this in books, but has never seen it in person.
He explains that you can make a wine too perfectly. There’s a natural browning
enzyme in white wine. The enzyme is neutralized if it comes in contact with
even a tiny bit of oxygen. Because Jim Barrett was such a perfectionist, the
wine did not come into contact with any oxygen which is almost impossible to
do, thus the brown coloring. However, the mysterious wine maker states that
luckily, the wine should reach a normal color within a few days. I found all of
this to be absolutely fascinating because I had never heard of such a
situation.
Along with that, it was of course very interesting to watch
the actual blind tasting scene once Spurrier had brought all of the different
wines back to Paris. Without a surprise, Chateau Montelena won the taste test,
but what I found to be the most interesting is that Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars
won the competition for the reds. This was not only exciting to me because
Stag’s Leap is also from Napa Valley, but because my absolute favorite wine is
Stag’s Leap Petite Syrah. I had absolutely no idea that Stag’s Leap was such a well
known winery, so that was a fun fact to end the movie with.
As I already stated before, there really wasn’t a lot of
information on the actual wine making process, and emphasis was rather put on
the storyline and perhaps overly dramatic characters instead. However, I
personally enjoyed that much better than if I had been watching a boring
documentary. I think this movie was an overall fun movie that would be great to
watch with some close pals while sharing a great bottle of Napa Valley
Chardonnay!
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