Review Week: Mondovino
Wine and commercialism. Art and profit. Mondovino, a 2004 documentary shot through shaky hand held cameras led by Jonathan Nossiter examines the two sides of the wine coin and ends of as you would expect, leaning far away from globalization in the wine industry.
The documentary leads off in France just as Robert Mondavi Winery is preparing to buy a bunch of land and put up a billboard. Right on cue, the French village fights back, unseats the socialist mayor in favor of a communist one, and blocks the sale. Eventually, the winery gave a “Mon Dieu” and admitted defeat.
Mondovino’s shaky cameras and big hearts leave there and travel from France to Italy and over to California alternating between small-wine-guy getting hosed by the man, and Michel Rolland, the acclaimed wine consultant who flies all over the world to help winemakers produce their wine. Rolland is portrayed like a millionaire shill playing a shell game with vat after vat of wine. Creative editing managed to make it look like the only words of advice he gives his clients are “micro-oxygenate.” It doesn’t take long for the link to be made between wines that Rolland consults on and wines that influential critic Robert Parker rates highly.
There’s an entertaining stopover in Monkton, Maryland to hang out with the granddaddy himself, Robert Parker. There’ a bit of background on Parker, how he came to review wines, and how influential his scores have become.
In a sweep through California, Nossiter steals a page from Michael Moore and manages to bring out the worst portrayal of in Sheri Staglin, half of the husband and wife team at Staglin Family Vineyards. Regarding their almost entirely Mexican immigrant workforce, Staglin says something to the effect of “We know all of their names, and we give them t-shirts.”
In the end, Mondovino makes it’s point that globalization is sweeping the wine industry but failed to convince me that this is a bad thing. Nossiter is guilty of filtering his footage to bring out the worst in his opponents, but this is almost forgivable in that it is something that nearly every documentarian is guilty of. The great thing about wine is that there is plenty of it, and there will always be Garagistes turning out stuff to rival the corporate giants.
Recommended to pick up Mondovino. It’s an entertaining look at what is going on with the business side of wine. Lots of people are ambivalent to it and don’t know what goes on behind the scenes to bring the wine to your table.
