Mondovino
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Movie Reviews of Mondovino
Movie Review: Terroir vs Vanilla-lization of Wine
Summary: 5 Stars
Unbiased, informative video on the current trends in the wine world. It talks about how wines are becoming all alike, done to please particular tastes in wine. The film also shows smaller traditional producers and distributors who support stand firm in their traditions. It's unbiased - even if for some it has an air of anti-capitalism -, it's one of the most eye-opening documentaries on wine out there. If you like wine and are interested and willing to expand your wine knowledge, buy this DVD.Movie Review: Fascinating !
Summary: 5 Stars
Learn the inside of the Wine industry, meet the producers, see the deals and non-publicized trades ... My beloved part of this documentary was to travel to all those wineries, in Brazil, Chile, Sardinia, US, France ...Movie Review: Le vin du monde
Summary: 5 Stars
I think that everybody who enjoys wine and likes to travel should see Mondovino. This is the best informative documentary about wine.
Movie Review: Culture and Commerce Clash in the World of Wine.
Summary: 4 Stars
"Mondovino" is filmmaker and sommelier Jonathan Nossiter's examination of the politics and personalities of the wine industry that have influenced the taste of wines worldwide in the past 25 years. Some regard the rise of wine critics and consultants and the globalization of wineries as a boon to business, allowing more access to wine for more people and more profit for the industry. Others lament the "Rolland-Parker marriage and the Napa-ization of wine", calling wine conglomerates like Mondavi "terroirists", with their high-tech young wines and disregard for place. Nossiter is an opponent of the current trend toward homogenization in wines. But the film may be of interest to wine-lovers of all stripes, since it allows both sides to articulate its viewpoint and to talk about wine, on 3 continents and in 5 languages -all of which Nossiter speaks. "Mondovino" is too long and repetitive at 2 hours and 15 minutes, but it has been edited down from a 10-part, 10-hour television series which may have aired in Europe. "Mondovino" was filmed by Jonathan Nossiter and Stephanie Pommez with a digital video camera that is usually handheld. The camera jiggles way too much for comfort, and the close zooms on people's eyes are due the camera's inability to hold focus. The film's technical limitations do detract from its watchability. In English, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish with English subtitles.
On the side of "terroir", wine as an "expression of the personality of the place" or "somewhereness", French vintners Aimé Guibert and Hubert de Montille wax poetic and get philosophical about Man's relationship with wine. Guibert was a major player in the "Mondavi Affair" in the town of Aniane, France, where townspeople, environmentalists, and anti-globalization groups came together to prevent Mondavi from constructing a mega-vineyard nearby. De Montille speaks candidly about his wines and family, and is one of "Mondovino"'s big personalities. Prominent figures in the corporate world of wine include Tim and Michael Mondavi, Garen and Shari Staglin, Patrick Leon -technical director at Mouton-Rothschild, Leo McCloskey of Enologix, the largest wine consultant agency in the U.S., and members of the Frescobaldi and Antinori families in Italy, who were rivals to partner with Mondavi in the deal that resulted in Mondavi's buyout of Ornellaia.
But the most interesting and controversial proponents of "brands" and the global market are Michel Rolland, wine consultant for over 100 properties in 12 countries, and wine super-critic Robert Parker. Rolland is witty and arrogant to a fault, but he's straightforward and rather funny if you don't take him seriously. He admits to imposing his own tastes on the world of wine. His solution to everything seems to be "just micro-oxygenate". Hundreds of wineries worldwide change their wines to suit him. And the man with the palate of gold smokes; his taste buds are fried. Robert Parker is less colorful, but more complicated. He speaks of the influence of the Watergate era on his thinking. He strove to dispel the conflict of interest in rating wines and monopoly of opinion by the Old World vintners by introducing the objective critic, with the intention of making wine writing more pro-consumer. His detractors would argue that Parker's intention was to help the California wine industry by rating wines highly that were oaky, as young wineries use new oak casks to hide their lack of "terroir". In any case, Parker seems to have replaced one tyranny of taste with another. Not coincidentally, Robert Parker and Michel Rolland, who are friends, have similar tastes in wine. When a wine is poorly rated by Parker, the vineyard hires Rolland to consult, and then the rating goes up -which looks an awful lot like a racket.
I'm not a wine drinker, so I'm not inclined to take sides in the culture vs commerce/ terroir vs brands battle. Some people will find "Mondovino" revolutionary while others will find it alarmist. Jonathan Nossiter makes astute and intriguing observations in the film, but I think announcing the death of diversity in wines would be premature. It strikes me that the wine industry is a victim of its own success. Improved technologies and increasing wealth have created a global market for wine. It would be impossible to keep up with the demand without young wines. And now consumers' palates as well as critics' have adapted to it. Industrialization brought the same fate to many industries. But that doesn't necessarily mean the demise of small-scale, individualist products. There is normally a specialty market for them. "Mondovino" reminds me of the Scotch whisky industry in the 19th century. Single malts went out of fashion due to high cost, inconsistent quality, and small scale production. The patent still, which could produce whisky much faster than the old pot stills, created the rise of grain whiskies and blends. Blends are a homogenized product, marketed by brand as opposed to place. It was actually corporate buy-outs that led to the resurgence of single malts in the late 20th century and a subsequent improvement in the blends. Most Scotch whisky distilleries are owned by conglomerates now, who find no reason to abandon traditional methods of making single malts. They created a global market for them, and they own the grain distilleries too.
The DVD (Think Films 2005): There are 2 bonus features: Part VI of the 10-part "Mondovino" series, entitled "Quo Vademus?" and an audio commentary with filmmaker Jonathan Nossiter. "Quo Vademus?" is eclectic in theme, but focuses primarily on the idea of sprucing up young wines with new oak, a lawsuit against Robert Parker involving some Burgundy wine, and taste being entirely personal. If you're really into wine and enjoyed the film, you'll probably like the audio commentary. Nossiter talks about the people in the film, their reactions, and his approach to the subject. He does discuss themes of globalization, but avoids commenting on what the film means, preferring people to draw their own conclusions. Subtitles available for the film in English and French.
Movie Review: Move over, Sideways: Here comes Mondovino.
Summary: 4 Stars
The second movie of the year with a strong wine-related focus, Mondovino ("World of wine") is no clone of Alexander Payne's award-winning dark comedy about two over-served wine enthusiasts touring the Santa Barbara wine country in search of wine and women, never mind the song.
Although the Mondovino producers aren't loath to publicize the film's upcoming (July 12) DVD release with a blurb from Vogue declaring it "A brilliant extended footnote to Sideways," the only real connection between the two movies is that they both have a lot to do with wine.
But you don't have to be a serious wine "geek" to enjoy Sideways, while I would assert that anyone who is not deeply into wine and wine-industry trends might find Mondovino an extended exercise in excruciating boredom. If you're sufficiently interested in wine to subscribe to this publication, however, I believe you'll find Mondovino very interesting indeed. I thought the 2-hour, 15-minute film just flew. My long-suffering bride, on the other hand, fell asleep in the middle of it and said it was "interesting but way too long."
Directed and filmed by Jonathan Nossiter, an American expatriate indie filmmaker who lives in France and loves wine, it's an extended non-fiction documentary filled with talking heads (who talk in at least five languages, most of them subtitled) and only the occasional wine-country scene, all of it filmed in a jerky hand-held-camera style that's trendy but that might foster carsickness.
In short, it's the kind of narrow-interest niche film that its cult followers (like me) will play over and over again, but so obscure that it played in theaters in only a handful of selected markets in the U.S. I didn't get to see it in Louisville until I was able to wangle a special videotape from the producers so I could preview the DVD edition, which will become available to anyone who wants it on July 12.
Mondovino's theme, briefly told, is globalization in the world wine business, and the tension between internationalists, "flying wine makers," big-name wine critics, industrial producers and artisanal wine makers (some earthy peasants, some quite well off), expressed in quick-cut interviews filmed in an "arty" style that features close-up facial shots that linger on every wart and crease, plus lots of cutaways to dogs (including Robert M. Parker Jr.'s flatulent bulldog), an odd leitmotif that becomes almost surreal after a while.
Nossiter's method is more like Michael Moore than Alexander Payne, using selectively edited interview clips to nudge the viewer toward a conclusion ... he's clearly no proponent of globalization and admires the philosophy and effort of small, local producers (as, in fact, do I). But Mondovino is hardly polemic. Nossiter's editing clearly casts "flying wine maker" Michel Rolland as a massive ego; Parker as a suburbanite at home with his dogs; Wine Spectator's James Suckling as a languid sybarite enjoying la dolce vita with Italian friends; California's Mondavis as an Italian-American family turned multinational corporation; Napa's Staglins as Stepford dot-com yuppies, and wealthy Italian nobles-turned-winemakers as crypto-Fascists pining for Mussolini. But the slant is much more subtle than, say, Fahrenheit 9/11, and Nossiter leaves plenty of room for intelligent viewers to draw their own conclusions.
My conclusion: If you're looking for a hard-hitting investigative piece that asks tough questions and unveils the smoking gun, you won't find it here; nor will you be impressed if you're in the mood for a barrel-of-laughs wine comedy like Sideways. But if you're interested enough in the wine business to care whether artisanal wine making gradually dies out in a globalizing economy, or whether Michel Rolland encourages his client producers to make standardized international wines that mask terroir, or whether Parker and Wine Spectator accelerate the trend by promoting such wines, then you will find Mondovino well worth the price of admission.