2008 Woodie Awards
"Bottle Shock" Pours a Satisfying Glass of the American Spirit
Patrick Fisackerly
Issue date: 8/26/08 Section: Entertainment
If there's one thing the new film "Bottle Shock" knows about its subject matter, it is that people who drink wine - I mean, really drink wine - do not see it as something to be taken lightly. To them, a glass of perfectly aged wine crafted from the finest grapes could change a typical day into one for the history books. "Bottle Shock" is about such a day in 1976, when a man named Steven Spurrier hosted a blind taste test in Paris between highly regarded French wines and one bottle of vintage 1973 Chateau Montelena wine from Napa Valley, California.
The always great Alan Rickman plays Spurrier with just the right balance of admirable intellectualism and British pretentiousness (and I say that with love). His story - one of many in this film's jumble of interwoven characters and their stories - is certainly the most interesting. His decision to travel from his Parisian wine academy to the vineyards of California sets the plot into motion. In an event that I took more as plot contrivance than fact, his car breaks down on the side of the road. Jim Barrett, played by Bill Pullman, comes to his aid. Barret owns Chateau Montelena and has taken the art of winemaking and turned it into a science, (think of him as the Leonardo da Vinci of oenology). Naturally, Spurrier mistakes Barrett for a provincial hick, and the two men clash immediately. This is something we've all seen before, but Rickman and Pullman are so good at what they do, they keep things interesting.
There is a lot of other stuff going on in "Bottle Shock" as well: Jim Barrett's son, Bo, is in his mid-20s and has made no effort to leave home and make something of himself, much to the chagrin of his hard-working father. He has a romance with Sam, the hot female intern at the vineyard. All of this is great, as they do become integral to the story as the film progresses, but my heart was always with Spurrier.
I also loved the side story of Gustavo Brambila, friend of Bo's and employee of Jim Barrett who has "wine in his blood" and spends his spare time secretly growing his own grapes and crafting the perfect wine. However, the film more or less forgets about him around the halfway mark, and the focus shifts towards the Bo and Sam romance and a number of different crises that almost prevent Chateau Montelena from entering the wine competition.
"Bottle Shock" is at its best when it lets its characters sit and talk to each other about what they love. These people show more passion for wine than most movie characters do about anything. They see wine as poetry, as something almost too sacred to drink. "Bottle Shock" is filled with moments of thoughtfulness and reflection, and it ends with a moment of quiet, sophisticated triumph. These moments make "Bottle Shock" worthwhile.
The always great Alan Rickman plays Spurrier with just the right balance of admirable intellectualism and British pretentiousness (and I say that with love). His story - one of many in this film's jumble of interwoven characters and their stories - is certainly the most interesting. His decision to travel from his Parisian wine academy to the vineyards of California sets the plot into motion. In an event that I took more as plot contrivance than fact, his car breaks down on the side of the road. Jim Barrett, played by Bill Pullman, comes to his aid. Barret owns Chateau Montelena and has taken the art of winemaking and turned it into a science, (think of him as the Leonardo da Vinci of oenology). Naturally, Spurrier mistakes Barrett for a provincial hick, and the two men clash immediately. This is something we've all seen before, but Rickman and Pullman are so good at what they do, they keep things interesting.
There is a lot of other stuff going on in "Bottle Shock" as well: Jim Barrett's son, Bo, is in his mid-20s and has made no effort to leave home and make something of himself, much to the chagrin of his hard-working father. He has a romance with Sam, the hot female intern at the vineyard. All of this is great, as they do become integral to the story as the film progresses, but my heart was always with Spurrier.
I also loved the side story of Gustavo Brambila, friend of Bo's and employee of Jim Barrett who has "wine in his blood" and spends his spare time secretly growing his own grapes and crafting the perfect wine. However, the film more or less forgets about him around the halfway mark, and the focus shifts towards the Bo and Sam romance and a number of different crises that almost prevent Chateau Montelena from entering the wine competition.
"Bottle Shock" is at its best when it lets its characters sit and talk to each other about what they love. These people show more passion for wine than most movie characters do about anything. They see wine as poetry, as something almost too sacred to drink. "Bottle Shock" is filled with moments of thoughtfulness and reflection, and it ends with a moment of quiet, sophisticated triumph. These moments make "Bottle Shock" worthwhile.
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