Film and Wine: A rambling experiemental essay in trying to connect two of my passions

I got to thinking recently the notion of what do I look for in a great wine and is it similar to what I look for in a great film. Also the more I think about great wine and film and what I look for in these two mediums it really got me thinking.


I have been drinking, thinking, geeking out about and writing about wine for 13 years now and have been watching films for a lot longer. I think I saw The Battleship Potemkin when I was 13 years old. A great film and a great wine can move you in almost similar ways. An evening drinking a bottle of DRC or Fritz Haag can have the same type of emotional impact as watching Contempt or Au Hasard Balthazar. Great wine does have its limitations though as you rarely get into the idea realm of thought that great film can get you to. Combining them is fun but I'll admit I have a hard time drinking wine and watching a movie at the same time. So matching great film to wines can be a fun idea it but ulitmately is a little pointless. When I watch a film I like to be completely absorbed and sometimes the whole process of pouring wine, sniffing and smelling, opening multiple bottles breaks up the experience and is distracting. So on to the meat of this essay, which got me off my couch from watching an Agnes Varda film. My head was churning with ideas about my two passions and it made me pause the film and jump up to the computer to start pontificating.


A great wine needs to move me in an emotional way. Period. End. This is great. Not merely good or servicebale or average or a good example of it type. It has to be great. As the old saying goes great wine is like pornography, you know it when you taste it. A great wine has to have impeccable balance. Perfect harmony. A harmonic convergence of sorts. All the parts that create this great convergence need to be at the top of their game. Acidity, earth/mineral/site expression, ripeness, purity of expression, texture, quality of tannin, integration of the vessel the wine was raised in, ripe fruit (but not too ripe, just perfectly ripe) and finesse are the ones that came to the top of my head. Subtletly is also important. I don't need a wine to hit me over the head and flash me, but I need it to engage me and for me to be engaged by it. It should never be easy but even if it is, like La Tache for example, there is always more there to dig at. There are many great wines out there, but I'l admit it, wine is not a democratic thing. Not even close. All films cost roughly the same to see. All wine does not cost the same to drink. That puts a limitation on a person when experiencing great wine. I hate to say it but the majority of great, emotional, toe-curling wines I have had have been on th expensive side. Wine is not infinite like film. Once The 400 Blows was made it is a known fact that it will last forever. 1959 Lafite will not last forever, unless they keep making it. Hardy? Wine is very very finite, which certainly is a factor in the high price of greatness. But one of the beautiful things about wine, with some research and determination you can find great wine that does not cost an arm and a leg. 1999 Coudert "Clos de la Roilette" Cuvee Tardive is a great wine that does not break the bank. This was, I'm guestimating here, $20 on release, maybe less. There are many exceptions like that, but you have to have an open mind. Usually the great wines, that are values, are from regions that the general population has not latched on to and driven the price up. The Loire and the Beaujolais have some great wines for not too much money but even in these regions they can be rare. Another reason a great wine might be a value is because the region has some sort of aspect to the wine where it will always be polarizing and not have mass appeal. Sweet German Riesling for example, or Chinon, which many people dislike because of a certain green quality. That is why there is not $100 Chinon and there is $2,000 Napa Cabernet Sauvignon. But the great wines that I would list in some great wine conversation would tend to be names like Dujac, Ramonet, JJ Prum, Egon Muller, Lafleur, Selosse, Fourrier, etc. Wine is no democratic passion, but it does make me cherish the great wines when I have them, as it is usually unexpected. When I drank 1993 Louis Carillon Bienvenue-Batard-Montrachet I had no idea it would be the greatest White Burgundy I would ever have. Every wine I expected to be great, odds are it never was. This is a great lead in to what I look for in a great film as so many great films that I have seen I never expected them to impact me the way that they did.


I look for the exact same thing in a great film that I look for in a great wine. It has to have a deep, intensely emotional impact on me, needs to engage me and needs to leave me thinking. I went to film school and since then my view of film has been permanently altered, for the better I think too. I was taught above all things that film can be great art. Ray Carney, who was my professor, in the American Independent Film at BU, nailed this thought into my head, more than any other film professor, and also nailed into my head the idea that film is democratic. Some of the greatest films I have ever seen in my life were in that 9:00 AM class. Faces, Wanda, Milestones, Scenic Route, Local Color amongst others. These films are all profound and unique expressions of the medium and are what you could call hidden gems. Like the Loire and Beaujolais these films are not for everyone, as they are not meant or made to be universally loved. They are different. Not the classic Hollywood mold. Faces has some of the rawest emotions and brilliant improvisation ever seen on film. Local Color and Scenic Route are unique specimens and there is nothing else like them. Rappaport is like Frank Cornelissan in that Rappaport films are so uniquely him you'll know from the first frame. Just like Cornelissan, his wines are so unique that you'll know them from the first sip and taste. But back to the democracy thing for a minute. These films cost no more than Persona, La Dolce Vita, My Night at Maud's, The Shining, Ordet or The Marriage of Maria Braun. Film tickets have always been reasonable and only go up a tick due to natural inflation. If film was modeled like wine, Pierrot le Fou would cost $50,000 a ticket per person. Thank goodness it does work like that. If films were priced on perceived quality and somehow became finite that would be a nightmare world. Actually that's a good idea for a film.


Great film also should and needs to be subtle and every answer should not be spoon fed to the audience. Hitting the audience over the head with themes, ideas or drama is never a good way to communicate the message. Subtlety is the key. Drama is important but should be done in a subtle way as to engage the viewer and get them to think. All great filmakers want the viewer to interpret their work and not leave it so black and white. We get engaged in the grey. Michael Haneke, in countless interviews, always talks about the viewer's interpretation. His film, Cache, had a very open-ended ending that left viewers to question many things they had just seen, But when interviewed he would not provide a black or white answer. In Funny Games, the audience is never explained to why these two seemingly well-off kids decide to torture this particular family. It is up to us to think and explore why. It makes the film that more engaging and of course re-watchable. Look at how many people hated the ending of The Sopranos, because the answers were not answered to most of America's satisfaction. It was and ending in a more artsy, European tradition and most people cannot deal with thinking on their own when it comes to film it television. It all has to be wrapped in a nice neat package. That is why really bad films make a lot of money.


Romanee-Conti is subtle wine. Yes,it's expensive, but so many people when they go into trying it think it's gonna hit them over the head with a nuclear megaton explosion of sweet orgiastic fruit and will finish for days on your palate. No. It is a subtle, delicate, spherical and very expressive wine. The reason the films of Eric Rohmer are so great, is because of how subtle they are, yet they communicate giant ideas about love, existence, memory, philosophy and it is all done through the thoughts and conversation between the characters. His setting are usually lovely and his characters all very beautiful, but that is maybe the most obvious thing in his films. His style per se. They are some of the most re-watchable films every made as you pick up something new each time which enriches the film for you even more.

I have many more thoughts and ideas on this topic and would love for all 6 of my readers to chime in. This was written more in a stream of consciousness way and may have rambled but I am glad I wrote this down and hashed it out.