Even if you have never had a yearning to quaff a glass or two of Bordeaux wine you will after seeing this new documentary about one of them oldest and most famous of libations, although you will probably be sampling the table wine variety and not the prestigious vintages that this movie focuses on. It takes two Australian filmmakers Warwick Ross and David Roach to pay homage to this remarkable city/region in France where they produce over 700 million bottles of wine from vines that the Romans originally planted. It’s made by more than 8500 producers or châteaux, but Ross and Roach concentrate on the five leading Houses who were classified as the finest back in Napoleon Bonaparte’s time.
With sweeping aeriel shots over the stunning vast acres of vineyards and the majestic Chateaus and a narration by (another Australian) Russell Crowe (spoken with such gravitas as if he was reciting The Bard), this paean to the landed gentry is quite a revelation. Most of the methods of production are the time honored ones that have not been changed for centuries, but even the most experienced and finest winemakers cannot control all of nature’s elements that will determine how good the grape harvest is, and how palatable that vintage will be each year.
With new found wealth (they now have more dollar Billionaires than the US) and a desperation for everything deemed a luxury, the Chinese became the largest consumers of the wine. Not that they actually drank much of it, for these new ‘connoisseiurs’ were Collectors who seek both prestige and profit from their sizable investments. In the second part of this movie devoted to this new Chinese obsession, one tycoon professed if there was a particular fine wine he wanted at an Auction, he simply kept his paddle up in the air until it got it regardless of the price. And a wealthy female collector claimed she was so bored with the fact the wine she wanted at auction was creeping up in price slowly, she just bellowed out 1.5 million and it was hers ( I do hope she meant Yuan…..).
And then the very next year, the vintage was declared a total dud, and the Chinese fled empty handed in droves, and prices fell again. The result is that we are now faced with Chateau owners and CEO’s whining on camera that they may never be able to recover from this ‘disaster’, naturally choosing to completely ignore the fact that their outrageous price hikes only 12 months earlier had produced obscene profits for them all.
The upside of this delightful and informative movie is that it gives us a greater understanding and appreciation of fine winemaking …. the downside is realising that this beautiful nectar of the Gods has now become a mere status symbol and an investment unit rather than something we can imbue and marvel at. I loved the brief clip of Filmmaker and Winemaker Francis Ford Coppola as he related his profound experience of drinking a glass of Chateau Margaux that was bottled four years after the French Revolution. He had an enormous orgasmic smile on his face as he spoke.
★★★★★★★★
In theaters now , and also available on Amazon VOD
Labels: 2013, Australian, documentary
