DRAMMATIC – THE SOMMELIER (Netflix 2020)

An original Netflix production directed by Prentice Penny, that tells the story of a young man torn between following his dream and pleasing his father. Elijah is a young humble man that works in his family’s grill restaurant. He’g got a strong passion for wines, which makes him dream about  becoming sommelier. Even if Elijah is very doted, his father insists so that he will give up his ambitions to take over the family business.

Thus begins a hard internal struggle in Elijah’s consciousness, whose aspirations risk disappointing the expectations of the man who raised him and desperately seeks his approval. The contrasting wishes of the father will create a conflict within the son. Elijah’s life in Paris, in the middle of his studies, is turned upside down. In fact, he discovers about the loss of his mother who, unlike his father, was very determined to contribute to his son’s dreams.

4- COMEDY: SIDEWAYS (2014)

Wine ways are infinite, but also aromatic, tasty, cristal clear. This emotion’s taste gave birth to a movie that revolves around frienship. Friendship here represents a hard reflection between staying young or appreciating the pleasures of maturity and aging. Miles is an english teacher, recently divorced from his wife. Depressed, introvert and unsuccesful with women, but with a great passion and knowledge of wines. He aspires to write his own book.

They’re getting close to his school friend’s wedding, the actor Jack Lapote, so they decide to go on a wine full immersion week through Santa Ynez Valley, in Santa Barbara’s county, California. Miles simply wants to drink some good wine, eat high quality food, play golf and forget about his ex wife. Jack, on the other hand, just wants to enjoy women one last time before getting married. They will also meet love, and Miles will meet Maya. Just like Miles, Maya lives for the joy of a good wine bottle. Mile’s culture clashes with Jack’s animal instinct.

Women and wine

And women go hand in hand with wine for them. For the writer they must be rare and unique (like his ex-wife), to be appreciated and sipped in their maturity. For the pretty soap opera star, they must have the immediate explosiveness of a sparkling one. As Maya says, in one of the most intense moments of the film: “wine is alive, like everyone else. It is born, it grows and it reaches maturity. In that moment, it has a fantastic taste”.

6- COMEDY – WINE COUNTRY (2019)

Abby decides to celebrate her dear friend Rebecca’s birthday with a weekend of wine tastings and a program of stricted planned activities. Abby, Rebecca and four other friends decide to spend the weekend in a countryside house in Napa, California. It seemes to be a simple trip with friends, but life has reserved obsessive thoughts and responsibilities for each of them.

They face everything, between useless husbands, illness, stressful work, unrequited loves, and flat, stimulus-free lives. The morning after their arrival, after a dinner in an expensive restaurant that will end up drowning in various amounts of alcohol, the women are read the tarot cards by a fortune teller named Lady Sunshine. The woman foretells him an uncertain and disastrous future if they do not begin to communicate with each other honestly what they keep hidden from each other. As time goes by, they begin to deal with their problems one at a time by carrying the harmless birthday through a series of energetic and daring adventures.

8- DOCUMENTARY- SOUR GRAPES (2016)

Sour grapes is a documentary that revolves around the true story of wine fraud Rudy Kurniawan. Rudy Kurniawan, a boy of Indonesian origin, was a rich collector of very charismatic wines who had a strong fascination for Burgundy. Although it was unclear where his money came from, he spent millions of dollars at fine wine auctions while selling countless bottles of wine from his own wine cellar. Acker Merrall & Condit, an auction company, achieved, thanks to the sales of the wine owned by Rudy, the annual world record of sales for the industry reaching 35 million US dollars. In 2008 the company held a sale in a Manhattan restaurant of several bottles of wine, belonging to Rudy, of Domaine Ponsot Clos Saint-Denis dated 1945, 1949 and 1966.

All that glitters is non gold

But the commercial owner of the business revealed that the particular wine had never been produced before 1982. It also emerged that the enormous amount of money at his disposal to buy wines at auctions came from two of his family members who many years before, from managerial positions, stole the equivalent of hundreds of millions of US dollars from Indonesian banks and then went into hiding. In 2014, he was found guilty by a federal judge in New York City of fraud and forgery and sentenced to ten years in prison and to pay a multimillion-dollar indemnity as compensation to his victims. Kurniawan refused to be interviewed for the documentary.

10- DRAMMATIC – A GOOD YEAR (2006)

Max Skinner is a British broker very found on his job. Greedy, ruthless, cynical and convinced that “winning is not everything: it is the only thing”. Both of his parents died in an accident when he was a child, so he spent much of his childhood in Provence with his uncle Henry. When his uncle dies without leaving a will, Max finds himself as the only heir of the Château La Siroque vineyard.

He starts with the new inheritance, initially willing to sell it and capitalize the value. While driving through the streets of Provence talking on his phone, he unintentionally invests a woman, Fanny Chenal, the owner of the bistrot in the village. The next day he has to leave for London and, while photographing the estate for possible buyers, he accidentally falls into an empty pool. He is found by Fanny, who, as a revenge to the car accident, fills the pool. After a few hours Max manages to get out, but his meeting in London was canceled and suspended for a week, which he decides to spend at his uncle’s estate. He receive the visit of Christie Roberts, an American girl who claims to be Henry’s daughter.

Old values

Slowly, living in the places where he had grown up, he rediscovered the values that his uncle had tried to teach him and these, together with love, will transform him from a smart and insensitive business-man to man able to appreciate the small pleasures of life that he has let slip too many times. He meets Fanny and asks for her forgivness, falls in love with her and they spend a night together, after which she leaves him saying that, for their distant lives, there can be no future for them.

The next day Max comes back to London with a heavy heart, because all he can think about is Fanny. His boss offers him a lifetime partnership. Max realizes that he does not want to become a dry and cynical man like his boss and so abandons his job and writes a letter on behalf of his late uncle that proves the existence of the blood bond with his illegitimate daughter Christie. He returns to France, where he reunites with Fanny and goes to live on his uncle’s estate, now owned by Christie.