Bottle Shock by Randall Miller (2008)
23 August 2008Damn I am really behind on these reviews! Damn!! Anyway, I got Kelly to go see this with me at the Arclight last weekend, even though it had gotten fairly bad critical reviews, but the two of us are really learning more about wine, and since we knew of this true story, we really wanted to see this. And the amazing cast didn’t hurt it much either. And contrary to reviews both of us enjoyed it. There is something not quite perfect, but the film was overall very enjoyable with good performances, good music, and a good, true story. Well worth checking out, though this may be more of a movie to see on DVD and cable than in the theater. Still I can guarantee it will make you want to go out and drink a bottle of wine or two (especially if you could afford it a bottle of the Chateau Montelena Chardonary so prominently featured in the movie, and even better would be the 1973), which for a movie like this at least means some success.
An English Wine named Steven Spurrier (Alan Rickman) has a wine shop and wine teaching school in France that is doing terribly. His only customer is the American who has the limo store next store named Maurice (Dennis Farina) who only drinks his wine, and never buys. To drum up some business Spurrier concocts a plan to pit French Wine against the new wine of California in a contest called the Judgment of Paris, and manages to get some high profile judges to judge it in France, so he heads to California to drink some wine. Right away Spurrier has a breakdown, and meets a man named Jim Barrett (Bill Pullman) who offers to help him, and they immediately get off on the wrong foot. Barrett is a real estate attorney who gave up everything for his dream to run a winery, but things aren’t looking good. His son Bo (Chris Barrett) is a bit of a lay-about, trying to make money anyway he can. They bring on a new unpaid assistant named Sam (Rachael Taylor), who is quite beautiful, but both Bo, and Barrett’s wine maker Gustavo Brambila (Freddy Rodriguez) set there sites on her. And Gustavo gets fired because he is making his own wine with someone else in the valley, though also because Barrett is out of money.
REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…
Spurrier is going around and trying all the wines, even being shown around by Bo and Sam, and is blown away by the wines he is finding.
When Gustavo is fired he takes his wine to Sam, and when she tries it, they have sex, and Bo arrives, and is furious. He ends up going to his rich mother to get money to buy barrels for his father, who doesn’t want to be more indebted. And he refuses to give his wine to Spurrier who he distrusts and hates.
Bo takes the wine to the airport and gives two bottles to SPurrier, and helps to get the airline passengers to carry the wine so it won’t get too jostled on the flight.
Jim tells Bo he has to leave and go to college, and Bo is ready to go, but he come back and finds Jim in a pile of the wine, which tastes good, but has turned brown. Bo goes with Sam to a friend of hers to find out about it, and learns that Jim made the wine so well it never got air, so it turned brown naturally, but will turn back, and they rush back to stop Jim from dumping the perfect wine, but the car breaks down. Sam ends up showing her tits to get a ride, but a cop finds them, and when they finally make it, the wine is gone, and Jim has gone back to the real estate office to beg for his job from the man who stole his wife.
Bo manages to call Jim, and tell him the wine is OK. Jim runs out and grabs a bottle he had given to his old secretary, and finds it perfect, and tries it.
There wine is of course picked, and the vitners want Jim to go to the contest, but he gets Bo to go and represent them.
At the contest California wines win hands down, and Jim’s specifically wins for white, and things have turned around. Bo returns and kisses Sam. And we learn that he went to learn wine, and is still making wine with his dad, who is still running the winery, and when Spurrier held a 30th anniversary contest California won again.
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Enjoyable. And we went and looked for the winning wine, and even recent bottles are super expensive! Wow.
An enjoyable true story, and worth checking out.
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