Bottle Shock

The bottles of Chardonnay Château Montelena was a while back aiming to get the gold, that precious award of metal, the Golden Globe. Or rather, the film 'Bottle Shock' with this wine as the main feature is. You know, the coveted award by all film producers as the clear indication of being likely the Oscar winner. 'Bottle Shock' is a romantic comedy with wine as the central theme, promising to be the film of the year. My kind of film. I love wine, and I definitely love romance, and the combination of both in a comedy suggests happy ending, and I sure like that too. It was based on the actual event taken place on the 24th of May in 1976, in the hotel Intercontinental in Paris. On that day the Californian wine had made a surprising jump to be on par with, including topping wines from France. "I knew nothing of the incident", admitted Alan Rickman, the leading actor who interpreted Steven Spurrier, the British wine expert living in France who, united with 11 other expert Sommeliers, blindfolded, were to taste and compare Chardonnay and Cabernet produced in California, with the well respected Borgona and Bordeaux from France. Wine tasting is a determining milestone in the quality of wine and makes good story for movies. Especially after that film, the name of which I can't remember, that even won an Oscar some years ago. Although this film was received with open arms in the Sundance Film Festival for independent films, it has created an open war between the producers and Steven Spurrier himself. The actor said he had talked to Spurrier on the phone, but what he didn't say was that Spurrier burst out laughing when he heard that Rickman was going to play him in the film, and he hung up on him. "There's hardly a drop of truth and many, many lies." said Spurrier referring to the film, when interviewed by the wine magazine 'Decanter', and says he's thinking of taking the matter to the tribunals. To start with, he spat out, that Rickman was about 20 years older than he was, and he portrayed the central character (Spurrier) like an arrogant Know-all and a comedian. What was even worst, the picture attributed all the success of the Californian wine to Jim Burnette, the proprietor of the bodegas Château Montelena, and to his son, both involved in the production, instead of Mike Grgich in the elaboration of the winning Chardonnay which is now preserved in the history in the virtues of Smithsonian, in Washington. While all that was going on, it had meantime generated another version: 'The Judgement of Paris - the real version according to Spurrier, based on the book by George Taher, the journalist of the 'Time' magazine, that had made known worldwide the success of the Californian wine. It's being talked about that Hugh Grant or Jude Law be would the lead star in the film. From the look of it, fact or fiction, half truths or nothing but the truth, winner or loser... all comes to money and fame fabrication and big buck business! Me? I have no prejudice, I would leave out the commercial intrigues and strategies to simply enjoy both films.   Tags:wine,film,bottleshock

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