An adage in a certain school of screenwriting holds that early in a film — maybe five or six minutes in — the writers ought to lay out the theme of the film, usually in a line of dialogue someone says to the protagonist. Sometimes the theme arrives slyly; sometimes it’s more obvious. For my money, “Sideways” introduces its theme with all the subtlety of a singing telegram. The protagonist, Miles, played with fierce melancholy by Paul Giamatti, has just picked up his bestie, Jack, played with jaunty himbo vibes by Thomas Haden Church. Jack wants to get excited about Miles’s unpublished novel. Miles won’t have it. “I’m not going to get hopes up, you know?” Miles says in minute seven. “I have stopped caring. The hell with it. I have stopped caring.”
If you’ve seen “Sideways,” you know this is a whopper. Miles cares too much. He gushes with opinions, none more staunch than his opinions on wine. His certainty about wine gives him refuge from his insecurities about work and money and aging and love. He embodies a certain sort of aesthete, the one who knows a subject deeply, and whose opinions become a shorthand for the rest of us — those who do our best to keep up, who aren’t sure which wine to pair with the steamed mussels, let alone know whether Miles’s bottle of Cheval Blanc 1961 has peaked.
Moments after Miles announces how little he cares, Jack cracks open a bottle of Pinot Noir and asks, “How come it’s white?” Miles’s reply points to why we’re stuck toting around received opinions like his: “Oh, Jesus. Don’t ask questions like that up in wine country. They’ll think you’re some kind of dumbshit, OK?”
A guy this conflicted is fine to question. Likewise, other conventional wisdom around wine customs deserves scrutiny. Take the adage that fish must pair with white wines and red meat demands red wine, the first rule of thumb anyone learns about drinking wine. The axiom is easy to recall, occasionally correct, and yet so flawed as to be effectively useless at dinnertime. Not every piece of wine lore is false, but between insecure snobs and skittish wine drinkers, much of the most common advice about how to drink, choose, and treat wine should be taken with a cork-sized grain of salt. Take for instance…
All Merlot is bad, all Pinot is good
Yeah, on this, blame “Sideways.” The film combined three dangerous elements to torpedo the Merlot makers of the world: a career-defining performance from Giamatti, memorable writing (Rex Pickett’s novel led to director Alexander Payne and writer Jim Taylor winning the 2005 Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay), and a nuclear-grade slander of an innocent grape. “If anyone orders Merlot, I’m leaving,” Miles barks before a double date. “I am not drinking any f*cking Merlot!” Those 13 words were all it took to sink Merlot sales in the years after the film came out. “Poor Merlot,” a California winemaker named Billy Dim told NPR in 2017. “Merlot is one of the best grapes on the planet and the movie did some damage to its reputation.”
Meanwhile, the film seems to have boosted real-life sales of Miles’s favorite grape. Miles champions Pinot, for which he says California’s cool nights are perfect. “Pinot’s a very thin-skinned grape,” he explains. “It doesn’t like constant heat or humidity. Very delicate.” Of course Miles identifies as a Pinot guy. And he helped to launch a generation of Pinot guys — not to mention countless bottles of overripe, absurdly alcoholic Pinot from the Golden State
ABC (Anything But Chardonnay)
Listen, even on its worst day, Chardonnay tastes fine. It’s among the world’s most widely cultivated varieties, a star in many celebrated blends, and a versatile enough grape that Chardonnays range from bright and buttery to tart and nutty.
To read full article, click HERE.