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June 01, 2005
Critique of Pure Riesling: Wine snobbery in an age of globalization
[Depraved Librarian] These men ushered an identity crisis into the world of wine, an Americanization and eventual globalization that has yet to abate. That crisis and its fallout are explored at length in Mondovino, a documentary that debuted last year at Cannes and opened last week in New York City. Jonathan Nossiter's film, which spans Napa Valley, Bordeaux, Tuscany, and Monkton, Maryland, among other places, is a sympathetic portrayal of European winemakers struggling to hold their own amongst the avatars of globalization.tags: Mondovino, wine
Some slightly related from Technorati and Google.
[The Littlest Blog] Mondovino: We see footage of people picking grapes, of course, but we also see the clipped exchanges between international wine consultant Michel Rolland and his driver. We see an old man fixing a roof at the winery climb slowly, laboriously from his latter. Nossiter drives home the point that wine is made by people as much as by the land they inhabit. Winemakers both big and small speak to the mystery of terroir, which literally translates as “soil,” but has come to mean a kind of essence of the earth, an organic component to the wine that cannot be synthesized.
[Drvino.blogspot.com] Dr. Vino's wine blog: Fair and balanced: Robinson on Rolland: Michel Rolland, the globetrotting wine consultant with 103 clients worldwide, ends up resembling Mephistopheles in the one-sided documentary Mondovino. Jancis Robinson offers a more balanced assessment of this influential figure in a posting on her web site. Consider it essential reading for those interested in the debate on globalization in wine.
[Vinography.com] Vinography: a wine blog: Mondovino: The Other Wine Movie: At best this is rude, like someone who can't have a serious conversation with you without fidgeting and staring off into space rather than meeting your eye. At worst it is a nasty way of making an unstated point about your subject, as when a rich wine estate owner is talking to the camera, but Nossiter starts filming an old man arthritically climbing a ladder to clean the man's gutters instead, or when a well-to-do winery owner is talking to the camera about the work that has gone into his winery and Nossiter starts filming the automatic pool cleaning device. Compare these types of interviews and footage, usually paired or bookended with either pop, rock, or occasionally folk music, to interviews with the aged old-world winemakers which show very little of the wandering camera syndrome and are usually paired with classical and older styles of music that conjure a nostalgic and romantic mood, and it's hard to argue that Nossiter is treating his subjects with an equal amount of respect.
[Vinography.com] Vinography: a wine blog: It's Not Parker's Fault, It's Global Warming: To reassure you about what french winemakers think , I can say from my conversation with those I met that the vast majority are not as biased against the US , globalization or the market economy as the french people at large .Although the general public in France is molded on views similar to what can be seen in Nossiter's Mondovino, the wine professionals in France see their real foe as being the french state and its excessive taxes and administrative coercion of all kinds .I remember very interesting conversations with some of them, on the ironic and satirical tone , and believe me, it had nothing to do with Nossiter's usual culprits : Target was the french administration , its ever increasingly confiscating tax pressure , ,its anti-business regulations, and its suicidal anti-wine campaigns .
[Drvino.blogspot.com] Dr. Vino's wine blog: Shaken and stirred: Mondovino: Wine enthusiasts have something meaty to chew on with the forthcoming release of Mondovino, a documentary about the evils of the globalization of wine. The film appears to have stirred up the wine world and I look forward to seeing it later this month when it is put into commercial release.
[Drvino.blogspot.com] Dr. Vino's wine blog: May 2005: Evan as wine shipments appear to be opening, the NY retail scene remains uncompetitive because of blue laws. Whole Foods Market, the high-end, organic grocery chain, has just closed its wine shop in its Time Warner location, reports Florence Fabricant in yesterday's NYTimes. Although constructed with a separate section and a separate entrance, the shop violated laws that prohibit the sale of wine in grocery stores. A grocery store can operate a wine shop in an adjacent property but it must have a separate entrance at grade.
Reflected tags on Technorati: Blog, Mondovino, Gourmets Of Wine
Posted at June 1, 2005 08:43 AM
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