Went and saw the Bottleshock movie last night – Based on the now infamous 1976 Judgement of Paris tasting from a particularly feel good, David & Goliath American angle.
It’s quite an entertaining movie, although its best to ignore the facts and simply roll with the storyline (apparently the ‘brown bottle event’ is purely for suspense). I did feel sorry for old Steven Spurrier though, as he is cast here as a snobby English wanker who knows nothing about Californian wines, though reputedly nothing is further from the truth.
Well worth a look all the same.
Comment
There are some serious flaws in the movie: the most notable is it tries to portray Jim Barrett and his son, Bo, as poor, overworked winemakers when actually Jim was a successful attorney from Southern California who flew up to Napa on the weekends in his private plane to see how things were going and Bo was just out of high school. Mike Grgich was the winemaker and when he left Chateau Montelena to start his own winery with Austin Hills, the Barrettes have tried to rewrite history and pretend that he never existed, so he is not mentioned in the movie. The movie also does not even mention Stag’s Leap Wine Cellar won the red wine tasting in the afternoon (except for a note at the end of the movie).