Bottle Schlock
How about a big screen adaptation of the legendary Paris Tasting of ‘76?
California versus France in a World Series of Wine. Red and White – the passions! The traditions! The egos! The…mediocrity?
Buyer beware: “Bottle Shock” is flabby, lazy entertainment, wasting a solid cast in a beautiful Napa setting rife with clichés. Save your Junior Mint money for a memorable bottle instead.
Movies in summer: a little popcorn, some cranked-up AC, and realistic expectations. I was looking forward to “Bottle Shock”, about the famed 1976 Paris tasting in which California wines incredibly bested French vintages in a blind tasting, turbo-charging worldwide demand. Thing is, the texture’s wrong, there’s no heart, and the finish is utterly predictable.
Should have been a natural: it was the Bicentennial! The judges thought the California wines were French! They muck it up with a cheesy father-son angle, and a lot of shots of a blonde in cut-offs. Alan Rickman plays an Alan Rickman-type. There’s Freddy Rodriguez (was that “Six Feet Under” music playing the whole time? Never mind). This movie is more “Coyote Ugly” than “Sideways”. It’s corked.
The two top-scoring wines of the Paris tasting were Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon and Chateau Montelena 1973 Chardonnay, a bottle of each now in the Smithsonian. Trust me – a better salute to the Spirit of ‘76 is to pick up a bottle of BBBBBBB(RRRRRR)!