"Mondovino" in a world of cinematic pain...
May 15, 2005
We all know the world's going straight to hell in a wine crate. That's the bad news. The good news is it always has been, and with any luck, always will be. History is littered with cynics who see nothing but decline in the character of every change.The original dunce, Duns Scotus, gave his name to mental thickness because of his crackpot scientific idea that frogs and fish grew from eggs laid by other frogs and fish. At the time, everyone knew they were created by the interaction of lightning and water during a storm and fell from the sky like rain. That's how stupid he was.
In the 1960s, my grandparents were not shy about voicing their complete disgust at everything The Beatles stood for musically, culturally, and artistically. It is hard and humbling at the same time to see otherwise fine people so completely misunderstand and be so wrong.
My grandmother somehow came to believe that Alice Cooper -- whom she'd neither seen nor heard -- signaled the end of everything good as we know it, although history counts Mr. Cooper among the less toxic cultural agents still kicking around from those days.
Jonathan Nossiter's 2004 documentary "Mondovino" -- nearing the end of its theatrical release in the US and destined for DVD in July -- also sees nothing but bad behavior in the present and ruin in the future for wine.
Nossiter's three chief villains in this cautionary tale are a winemaking technique called "micro-oxygenation," a French wine consultant named Michel Rolland who appears to recommend and practice micro-oxygenation on a macro scale, and the Mondavi family.
"Mondovino" goes into practically no detail about what any of this means. In a nutshell, micro-oxygenation and very ripe grapes are what makes Australian shiraz taste so fantastic and has helped it become a world wine phenomenon. On the international market today, Australia is killing everyone, especially set-in-their-ways ancient French wine producers, from whom we hear plenty in this movie.
Since little is explained, you're left with the sense of sitting in a board of directors meeting of an organization you don't understand. People are using a lot of unfamiliar words -- everyone else seems to understand each other -- but you have no idea what's going on.
I understood what everyone in "Mondovino" was saying, and I will confess that I often had no idea where we were, whom we were talking to, or why. When the camera wandered off super-critic Robert Parker while he was saying something about wine to give us a tight close-up of his dog's ass, I put me feet up and decided to accept the film on its own terms, which were meager.
After this movie, no one from the Mondavi family will ever do another interview again, probably for generations, and for very good reason. The way they were portrayed visually was just repellant, and seemed to want to express overtly something, but what? At first, the Mondavi family looks like the well-meaning Lennie in Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" as they love southern France a little too much and squeeze a little too hard for local tastes. Kicked out of bed by the French, they fall into the arms of the Italians while entertaining notions of making wine on Mars.In the end, it was just a bad interview, proving only that when you combine spooky lighting, an omenous setting, and disturbing visual composition with Robert and Michael Mondavi -- not exactly the two most beautiful men who ever walked the earth anyway -- you end up with two guys who look spooky, omenous, and disturbing.
Seeing critic James Suckling essentially confess that he went easy reviewing his landlord's wine because of the relationship was a great moment in journalistic frankness. It only confirms everything everyone thinks already: that the game is rigged and somewhere the same big tank of wine is being used to fill up bottles of Two-Buck Chuck out of one end and priceless Chateau Petrus out of the other.
"Mondovino" is the first next wine movie after the Oscar-winning "Sideways," and there will surely be more. I'm looking forward to watching it again on DVD. Like the various "Star Trek" movies, it will look much better on a screen about 1,000 times smaller.
2003 L'Ostal Cazes "Circus" Shiraz (about $13, imported and distributed nationally by Palm Bay Imports, 561-362-9642)This wine is exactly the sort of thing the heroes of "Mondovino" would rail against if they could focus. Ripe, round, sunny and full of forward fruit flavors, the disagreeable French peasant farmers would say it tastes too good, and yes people like it, but that doesn't make it good. The grapes come from Minervois, an ancient grape-growing region of southern France, and the treatment is thoroughly modern with delicious soft tannins and great pleasing aromas of rosemary and black pepper. L'Ostal-Cazes also makes a Shiraz-Cabernet ($13) that is a little more traditional: harder, more rigid and not quite as fruit-driven. The reserve bottling is simply called L'Ostal-Cazes ($30) and it features a nice traditional balance of syrah, carignane, grenache and mourvedre.
© 1988-2024 by Jonathon Alsop
336 Washington St. Brookline MA 02445-6850 617-784-7150
jalsop@invinoveritas.com
Guarantee of Privacy Copyright Reminder