[jparrott]

Banco, on Aug 25 2005, 08:33 AM, said:

It’s preferable to drink an average wine with regional character and style, that says something about where it comes from and who made it, than a technically polished wine that could have been made anywhere.

Another examination of the same issue from one of my favorite importers: Dressner on Blind Tasting.

[deangold]

And Off topic to be sure as I have not seen Mondovino. But you posters got me started. Why the hell should we be expected to drink a single style of wine just because Laube or Suking or Parkjer like that style? And now we have Leo Mcloskey (who never was a great winemaker when he actually made stuff and didnt regress spectrgraphic data against reviewers' scores) making a fortune telling Sonoma Cabernet Growers to make their wines taste like Napa. Sorry Patrick Campbell (Laurel Glan) you've been a dumbshit idfdiot all these years making a Sonoma cabernet that actually tastes freaking different! Where did you get the farking nerve????????????

Wine is meant to be fun and a process of discovery. If you want something that tastes the same every day (and probably tastes like swill everyday) drink a farking bottle of Johnny Walker scotch. Of course it has nothing to do with real scotch any more than Yellowtail has to do with real chardonnay! What Yellowtail does have is marketing dollars, coupons and timid wine buyers willing to shill for the big money guys. Do you think the owner of Yellowtail actually drinks that bloody kangaroo piss when he dines out at fine restaurants?

I just put a wine on the list, a Carema from Luigi Ferrando. It is funky, earthy, tannic. The tanniins aren't any of this "fine soft tannin" because that would be BS in Carema, a cool growing area. Hes not trying to make a Barolo. The wine is kick ass and guess what? It tastes different than Barolo. Its really good. I wouldn't drink it every night but it is wonderful with rich and fatty meats. Thanks to Neal Rosenthal for marching to his own drummer!

I don't read the Spectator/Parker/Tanzer. I never let a sales person tell me any scores. I actually throw out sales people who quote scores. I don't look for international styled wines, but wines that have something to say about WHERE THEY WERE MADE!

That doesn't mean I don't have cabernets or merlots from Tuscany on my list (I do). But I also have a malavasia nera & colorino blend made by an 18th century production process. And funky as hell tasting Carema. And 20 Brunello's: not one from Banfi! And every day I have 19 people telling me they love our wines for every one person who has a complaint about the obscurity or weirdness of our program.

Once upon a time, a winery named Bonny Doon made quirky and wonderful wines. There were hard to get. They were amazing. Then they started using wine press to sell their wines. I railed against it. I told them that if they resorted to hype instead of just pouring out the farking wine, we were in for trouble. WHile they still make some fun wies, they are no longer what they were. Now they are more known for fun lables than for amazing wines. Yes, they are still at the higher end of the commercial, but they are a box mover these days. Too bad.

[zoramargolis]

I've seen the film. I thought it was mildly interesting, rather primitive agit-prop, and that the director should study with Michael Moore before he makes another documentary. I've read all sorts of anti-Nossiter, pro-Nossiter, pro-Parker, Parker-bashing, Neal Rosenthal is the Messiah stuff here and in other places. Both camps have positions that have some merit. The concept of anti-corporate, artisanal holdouts certainly is romantic. The problem is, there are a many who are making good wine and just as many, if not more who are not. In the '80s, Parker was the kid proclaiming that the emperor (ie. many high-end bordeaux producers) had no clothes. They were selling a name and a label, and filling the bottles with swill. Sounds kind of like what Yellowtail is doing now. By focusing on what was in the glass, Parker almost single-handedly caused the French wine industry to clean up its act. The concept of terroir is commendable, but as far as I can tell, the term is often used to sell thin, sour, tannic or off-tasting wine. I don't have a wine cellar in which to lay down old-style bottlings that need six or ten years to turn into something drinkable. Nor do I have a budget that allows me to take a lot of chances and buy things that I may or may not enjoy. Most people are like me, and that explains the rise of the critics and the consultants. I attended a tasting of artisanal Burgundies where there was maybe one wine out of fifteen that I could see myself enjoying. Forget about buying--I couldn't afford any of them. But example after example was thin, insipid, sour stuff. I'm afraid that my taste runs to mouth-filling fruit. If I want a thin, sour beverage with my dinner I'll drink lemon water. I don't like everything Parker recommends--I have a few importers whose name on a back label is what I look for. Neal Rosenthal isn't one of them.

[Banco]

The Economist recently reviewed a number of wine books. The reveiw includes many of the arguments discussed in Mondovino, with a similar cast of characters: click here

"Parkerisé" is bound to figure prominently in my tasting notes from now on--unfortunately.

[tastedc]

The movie seems at first to have a clear "good guy, bad guy scenario" with small producers being the good guys and large global wine companies, wine critics and consultants being the bad guys. But this is the wine world, which is not very representative of other main line industries. Wine is a very personal product - there are approximately 50,000 different wines produced for the retail marketplace every year. Compare that to other products/services such as the number of beers (closer to the 100's), and the number of retail products available on American grocery shelves like cereals (in the 100's), etc.. my point is that Nossiter tries to make a clear dichotomy, but the reality is it is NOT that clear: Mondavi produces wines from a specific terroir and partners with other famous winemakers to make top wines - take the tour of Opus, and it doesn't feel like an industrial manufacturing giant, just the opposite, it's very snooty, insular, and particular about the way they make wine - kind of like the "good guy" French producers... And Robert Parker is the most influential wine critic because he rates wines with renowned consistency and somewhat of an objective rating system, when originally wines were rated by former English private schoolboys with starched collars who put "pedigree" and "character" before "taste"...

So who is right? This is what makes the movie great - it is edited very poorly and is totally biased, but it brings awareness to the wine world (like "Sideways") and it asks deep questions about moral and ethical issues. Will the general public care? Probably not in the US with overall such poor knowledge of wine by consumers here that frankly 2 Buck Chuck wine could be transplanted into a $50 bottle, and American consumers who could afford it would proclaim it one of the world's great wines! Frankly, 2 Buck Chuck and Yellow Tail are probably the best things that have occured to the US market from the perspective that more Americans are now being introduced to "dry" wines that are affordable and available on the supermarket shelf. Nossiter's "good guy" producers are such perfectionists at producing "wines of terroir" that most American consumers can't afford them, so they make very little impression at all. So the movie is basically a fun exercise for wine people in the industry, but is most likely unimportant and unrecognized by the American wine consumer who is just looking for a good bottle of wine!

And Robert Parker doesn't really make a very good Bad Guy, he really just enjoys Big Robust Style wines!

[Olivia255]

I just can't get past the farting dogs...... sorry!

[ol_ironstomach]

I started to write a review of Mondovino, which I finally saw last night, only a little over a year since I received the DVD as a gift. When it ran to more than a couple dozen column-inches, I scrapped the thing and resolved to knock out a couple of short paragraphs.

It's not a great movie. From a filmmaking standpoint it's better than most documentaries, and a heck of a lot more honest than any of Michael Moore's, but as entertainment it's a dud. The message is, as others have said, predictable. But that's not because of an undue amount of manipulation on the part of the filmmakers. The story is told by the subjects themselves, in long enough segments that they can properly express their thoughts, and it's worth seeing. The traditionalists are not painted with a facile and sappy sentimentalist palette, but as the angry, living guardians of local cultures that are dissolving in a tide of instant-gratification economics. Whether it's Rolland making insultingly brief housecalls to his overeager clients, or the Staglin family stiffly arrayed around the father without any idea of what to do with their hands, or Alix de Montille (the obvious heroine of the film) bitterly railing against the brand-management schemes of her employer, the visual depiction of each subject in their own environment immediately conveys unspoken volumes about both where they come from and the decisions they make, right or wrong.

It took me a long time to find an evening when I really wanted to watch an overly long documentary about winemakers. Hopefully I'll be a little more forward about tasting the more-soulful wines.