The National Wine
UnClub
Newsletter
September/October 2008
Bottle Shock - A Commentary
The Barretts of Chateau Montelena have to be grinning from ear to ear these days after the release of the new wine-oriented movie "Bottle Shock" which profiles the pivotal historical moment of California's rise to fame as a wine producing region. Jim Barrett (the perfectionist father) and Bo Barrett (the hippie son), played by Bill Pullman and Chris Pine respectively, are the stars of the film as they struggle to survive the early days of ignominious wine-farming in Napa Valley while the wine-buying public of that era (mid '70s) continues to hold French wines in the highest regard.
Paris wine shop owner and French wine snob Steven Spurrier (Alan Rickman) is the British nay-sayer who organizes a grand double-blind tasting in France of Napa Valley Chardonnays against legendary French white Burgundies, and Napa Cabernets against monumental Grand Cru Bordeaux. His judges are the elite restaurateurs, sommeliers, and wine writers of that time in France who are totally aghast that their review of the wines in question reveals that not only are the California wines contenders for world acclaim they can be judged as better than their extravagantly-priced French counterparts.
In actual fact, this Bicentennial Year (1976) judging had significant implications (mentioned at the end of the film by Rickman's character) for all New World wines from California to Chile and Argentina, as well as South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. No longer would the French be the sole claimants to fine wine thumbing their noses at Gallo's Hearty Burgundy as they sip their Burgundian Gevrey Chambertin.
Other positive implications stemmed from this watershed event as well. Since that time when the French were stung by their own opinions regarding the attractively fruit-rich quality of the "Sunshine State" wines, winemaking practices have been changing in the Old World so that the fruit profile of today's European wines is much more emphasized over the acid/tannin structure that used to predominate, particularly in the reds. The wonderfully warm 1982 vintage of Bordeaux was touted as "California-like" and was greatly prized by the French (prices for '82 Bordeaux reached new heights and these wines are considered collector wines today).
I was privileged to be part of a series of tastings put on in the mid '90s where the new style of user-friendly French Bordeaux were pitted against several vintages of Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon Private Reserve and I can attest to the similarities of the best Premier Grand Cru estates with the best Cabernets of California. Many of us at these blind comparison tastings (not formatted strictly as a judging event) were as confident as the French judges were in "Bottle Shock" that we could pick out the Mondavi as opposed to the Bordeaux of Lafite, Latour, and Margaux and we were thoroughly humbled when it was proven we could not!
Our eyes were then opened anew to the results of the 1976 Spurrier event, made all the more impressive by the fact that the Mondavi Private Reserve Cabernet shown at our tastings sold for about half the price of any of the French Grand Cru labels. Today's exhorbitant Cabernet prices from districts like Napa Valley and Alexander Valley in Sonoma County reflect the reality that the best of California wines are held in equal esteem with the best the French vignerons have to offer.
The one glaring problem with judging wine that I've mentioned in these newsletters regularly is that when one tastes comparatively in a clinical setting which doesn't include food it will always be the case that higher alcohol, big fruit wines will always seem more outstanding than more subtle bottlings that don't rely on high alcohol and manipulated fruit intensities to make a quality statement. It's human nature to judge bigger as better. It is with this reservation that I extend my agreement with the Spurrier judging results.
The appeal of powerfully fruity wines has become a problem in the wine world today as many producers are short-cutting nature's ripening process in warm regions like California by augmenting their juice with flavor-intensifying acid additions (acidulation). The wines smell and taste explosively fruity so they can become very popular with the buying public, but too often these wines emulate the sometimes extreme form of augmentation practiced by plastic surgeons on humans!
The changing of the guard scenario as depicted in "Bottle Shock" makes this film well worth seeing. It's funny to note the juxtaposition of wine snobs versus wine enthusiasts displayed on the big screen. While the movie isn't an important, Oscar-worthy film project, the story is true to the facts and is entertaining overall. It makes you want to go get a fine full-flavored Napa Valley Chardonnay and bask in the wonders of nature captured in a bottle!
Cheers!
Donald W. White