Earlier this year, select screenings of a new documentary film captured the attention of the wine world, and generated no small amount of controversy. That movie is Mondovino, and after watching the recently released dvd version, I can safely say that it should be considered mandatory viewing by not just oenophiles, but by anyone who truly cares about what they eat and drink.
A collection of interviews conducted over a three year period by director Jonathan Nossiter, the film seeks to document the current state of wine through the words and attitudes of its major players, including several members of the Mondavi clan, French wine consultant Michel Rolland, critics Robert Parker and James Suckling, and winemakers from Bordeaux to Brazil and Tuscany to Napa. What emerges from all of this is a film that is on the surface about wine, or in words of the single-name wine writer, Tish, "about the clash of tradition vs. modernization; handcrafting vs. commerce; terroir vs. vanilla-like globalization," but at its heart about passion.
While it is true that documentary films tend to reveal the stories their makers wish shown, and that that tendency often colours their conclusions, there is to me little question that the face of wine as portrayed by Mondovino is aptly, if loosely divided into two spheres: those for whom wine is a business crafted from their passion and those for whom passion is primary and business a fact of economic life. In the former category are the Mondavis, who, pioneer status notwithstanding, are in the film shown more as business moguls than winemakers, and the unbearably egocentric Rolland. Standing in the latter world are the father and daughter winemakers, Hubert and Alix de Montille, and the endearing Aimé Guilbert, who so bemoans the present and future of wine that he begins his interview by stating categorically: "Wine is dead. Let's be clear, wine is dead."
Naysayers and devout disciples of the capitalist faith will view Guilbert as a quaint archetype of a bygone age, arguing that the business and winemaking acumen of the Mondavis and their ilk not only produce wine more effectively, but also craft better wines. For me, however, creativity without passion is a hollow pursuit, and winemaking, like brewing or cheesemaking or baking, is definitely a field that demands creativity. Michel Rolland may well be able to advise his clients on how to manufacture a wine that will please the palates of the world's most influential wine critics, but whether that wine will taste like it has a heart and a soul is another matter.
This world is not a black and white place, and even in Mondovino, with its repeated juxtapositions of boardrooms and vineyards, business and passion, there is plenty of room left for various shades of grey. But when it comes down to wine or beer, or for that matter, almost any food or drink, there are those producers who will opt for the technical ideal and others who will instead seek to craft with passion and skill an individualistic, sometimes idiosyncratic absolute. And nine times out of ten, I will side with the latter camp.
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