Days of Wine and Movies
by Leslie-Ann Sheppard
owner of The Cellar on Surfside Road.
Going to the movies has always been a favorite past time of mine. Heading into a dark theatre and being transported to another world, another time, with strangers who reveal themselves in some way on that silver screen is a pretty great way to spend a couple hours.
The ritual of watching a good flick has changed for me through the years. When I was a child, my aunt would load me and my six cousins into her station wagon and treat us to matinees. She’d file us into the row of seats and then hand each of us our own personal brown paper bag of homemade buttered popcorn. Sipping on a Coke and crunching popcorn, I remember watching The Black Stallion, longing to befriend a horse like the boy did in the movie.
Before living on Nantucket, I loved to go to the movies and would go as often as once a week. But I would rarely tote my own popcorn. Aside from occasionally smuggling in a bottle of water, I’d either have a meal or drinks before or after the movie, or sometimes go to a theatre that was also a coffeehouse, serving wine, beer, and coffee. An excellent concept, this has caught on a bit, even here on Nantucket with our Starlight Theatre & Cafe.
Which brings me to present day. More often than not, the movies I watch are in my home, either rented DVDs, or ‘On Demand.’ The trade off for not having surround sound and a giant screen is the comfort of snuggling into a blanket on the couch, glass of red wine in hand.
Through these years, wine has had an interesting relationship with the film industry. Wine is often a key prop in a movie, such as the endless flowing of Champagne in Casablanca. In fact, Bogart toasts Bergman with Champagne as he utters one of his most memorable lines ever: “Here’s looking at you, kid.”
Other times, wine has had more of a starring role, as in 2004s Sideways. This film revolves around the characters’ personal journeys through California’s Central Coast. Through its complex characters, the audience gets to see a wine novice learn to taste wine, a wine snob preach his passions, and two wine aficionados celebrate their lives with good wine. Sideways brought wine to audiences who may not otherwise have known much about Pinot Noir, or about such famed wines as Domaine Romanee-Conti, or Cheval-Blanc. It had a huge direct effect on wine sales for several years, denigrating Merlot and catapulting the sales of Pinot Noir.
More recently, Bottle Shock (2008) tells another wine-centric story, this one based on the historical blind wine tasting of 1976 between French and American wines. Factually interesting and also entertaining, the film makes Napa Valley look very enticing in a farm-y and laid back way that it probably was in the 70s. Sadly, my colleague, winery owner Jed Steele, himself from Napa, informed me that many of the facts were distorted to make a more Hollywood-style story. Still, it was a movie that brought wine as its central focus to the masses.
There have also been documentaries about wine. Mondovino tells the tale of wine consultation and industry. Blood into Wine, which debuted earlier this year, depicts how rock band frontman Maynard James Keenan of the band Tool collaborates with winemaker Eric Glomski to produce wines in the Arizona desert under the ‘Arizona Stronghold’ label. Even though Keenan claims not to want to be regarded as ‘rock star,’ but rather ‘winery owner,’ – at least throughout promoting the film, his celebrity cannot hurt the marketing of both the movie and the wine.
It’s been like that with many wines in fact; famous people have gotten involved with wine. Actor Fess Parker established his own Santa Barbara label in 1989. Screenwriter Robert Mark Kamen started growing grapes at his Sonoma Vineyard in 1981, mostly to sell grapes to neighboring winemakers. When he bottled his own delicious Cabernet Sauvignon for its debut vintage in 1999 and gained widespread critical acclaim, he too decided to incorporate his own label. Actor Gerard Depardieu controls shares in several French wineries. Musician Dave Matthews owns a winery in Virginia. Actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie own a vineyard in France which makes wine for their own personal consumption. These are just a few examples of celebrities and wine.
Perhaps the biggest name that intersects the wine and film industries is Francis Ford Coppola. This Oscar-winning, multi-talented writer, director, and producer is also the owner of the Rubicon Estate and Francis Ford Coppola Winery in Napa. Coppola apparently rented the Rubicon Estate in 1978 for his family’s vacation, before becoming enchanted with it and deciding to buy it and update this iconic landmark and turn it into a once-again viable and highly regarded wine producer. Come to think of it, it was around 1979 that Coppola’s The Black Stallion made its mark in my popcorn and Coke induced memory—the same time that Coppola made his foray into wine.
As part of our popular culture, wine will always have its appropriate place on the big screen. I’ll settle for my little screen tonight. Writing about Coppola has inspired me to rent The Godfather and sip some good Italian juice.
