Mondovino

Mondovio is a documentary about the state of the wine industry worldwide, that is funny, mean, a little sad, terribly shot, and excellently edited. It’s surprising in fact that something that so craftily reveals its story the way Mondovino does can suffer from such poor sound recording and camera-work. More amazing that despite the distractions of director Jonathan Nossiter seemingly trying to figure out how his camera’s zoom lens works while interviewing people, I can forgive him that because the rest of it is so well done and he tells the story so well.

The film starts off with an apparently simple story of some small independent vintners in France that successfully managed to fend off a buy-out from a huge American conglomerate. We also meet rather quickly, a rich, heavy, bearded, smoking wine consultant, on the phone non-stop in his car as he races from vineyard to vineyard tasting their wines and giving them all the exact same advice: “micro-oxygenate,” whatever that is.

So far, this is exactly what you’d expect in a documentary about the state of the wine industry worldwide, right? Of course. But for the next 2+ hours, Nossiter manages to almost constantly throw new wrinkles into his story.

We get true “characters” of course, and Nossiter is eager to show us the embarrassing nouveau-riche Californians who bow down to the incredibly successful Mondovi family. And in fact, the whole idea of the family comes through again and again here. There is the de Mondille family, an aging father whose style of wine-making is certainly outdated. His son has taken over the company, and kept it going, but his spiritual heir is his daughter, who, disturbingly, works for a large wine conglomerate. Late in the movie – maybe the third time we’ve come back to him, she promises her father that she is going to quit the company, because she doesn’t believe in the way they do things, and the look on the old man’s face is heart-breaking.

But there a dozen excellent moments told in here. It is quite honestly almost a Falcon Crest-type soap opera, the way we learn about different connections, different deals being made, going bad, and coming back too life again.

I can’t begin to describe it all, but a couple more items that might pique interest here. We meet the current and former mayor of a French town; one communist, one socialist; and their views and reasons for doing what they did is fascinating. We meet everyone’s dog – and everyone has a dog.

After more than an hour in, we are finally introduced to Robert Parker, the American who changed the way wine is made across Europe so that it now appeals to his palate and his preferences. We meet up with Italians in amazing villas who defend fascism and have no qualms of arguing about all the GOOD that Mussolini did. I’m sure these people are just beside themselves that Berlusconi is out.

What happens in the film can of course be used as a model for the pitfalls and unintended consequences of globalization across the board – even if it has nothing to do with wine. But wine just so happens to be the perfect example that illustrates the big picture so well.

It’s quite long, and in a theater, I might not have been able to put up with it all, particularly since I wouldn’t have had a bottle of wine next to me. But over a leisurely two nights on DVD, it’s quite excellent.

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mauer

Mark Mauer likes movies cuz the pictures move, and the screen talks like it's people. He once watched Tales from the Gilmli Hostpial three times in a single night, and is amazed DeNiro made good movies throughout the 80s, only to screw it all up in the 90s and beyond. He has met both Udo Kier and Werner Herzog, and he knows an Irishman who can quote at length from the autobiography of Klaus Kinksi.

19 thoughts on “Mondovino”

  1. Mere echo, as Reynolds would say. ‘Mondovino’ it utterly absorbing. It is hard to believe that mostly elderly white men discussing the virtues of ‘terroir” could be so interesting.

    It is really a very simply story — too simple, I assume — of fine wine made in traditional ways, reliant upon the local soil and climate, until big, bad conglomerates (mostly American, but the Mouton-Rothschilds serve as collaborators), along with a bunch of wine consultants, who work smooth the edges off distinctive local wines, come along and homogenize the wine.

    The tension between anti-globalism and anti-Americanism keeps on bubbling to the surface. At one point one of the traditional cultivators makes a feeble distinction between Mondavi (bad) and a French wine company (good) that hires Gerard Depardieu to front an effort to do exactly what he protested Mondavi doing.

    Very good indeed. And as Mauer says, best watched with wine.

  2. I will confirm: this is a fantastic and engaging documentary. I actually kind of like the way it was shot. Although sloppy, it struck me as willfully, sometimes even perversely distractable camerawork–focusing on the worker behind a wine company flack, or flashing all around the office of an exec who (a p.r. agent tells Nossiter) doesn’t like messy frames in documentaries. I also thought the color scheme, the vibrancy of the images, was amazing–but that may be me just getting used to what good d.v. transfer can look like.

    The one thing I might have appreciated is a little more about wine love, wine aficionados–we see some of them, big money types, at a tasting with Parker. But, in keeping with the globalization/regional and corporate/local splits, I was wondering how the peccadilloes of wine pleasure shift from place to place, are influenced by economics, etc.

    Still–no complaints. I was surprised this was so much fun to watch.

    While watching, I sipped a choice Mogen David 20/20, Orange-flavored. It had the perfect insouciant bouquet of children’s aspirin.

  3. Though Mondovino is not specifically about French vs. American wine,
    I thought this might be an interesting addition to the story in the film. In
    1976 a blind taste test was unanimous in choosing California wines over French
    wines. It put the wine world in turmoil. They have re-staged the tasting now.
    Two articles – one from the Telegraph giving background on the first test, and another from the SF Chronicle about the results of the latest test. (Both taken
    from aldaily.com

  4. Well, they are short articles Gio, but sure: The Californian wines won again. The French, upon losing 30 years ago, said their wines would age better. But here we are, and they didn’t.

    –And Jeff; not just European wines. Some very good American vintners are now using screw tops. It had talked about for years, but once the door was opened, it’s been freefall for the cork. While I love my cork, I frankly prefer the screwtop to those rubber/plastic abominations that some low-price wines use.

    form the SF article: “When the results were combined, the 1971 Ridge Monte Bello Cabernet Sauvignon from the Santa Cruz Mountains finished first, followed by the 1973 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars S.L.V. Cabernet Sauvignon; a tie between the 1970 Heitz Martha’s Vineyard Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and 1971 Mayacamas Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon; and the 1972 Clos du Val Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.

    Bordeaux took the next four slots — 1970 Chateau Mouton-Rothschild, 1970 Chateau Montrose, 1970 Chateau Haut-Brion and 1971 Chateau Leoville-Las-Cases. The 1969 Freemark Abbey Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon was 10th.

    Organizers of the event were quick to say the re-enactment was a “celebration” of the historic Paris tasting and not meant to be a competition — a bit like the Special Olympics, where everyone is a winner.

  5. i love this. it’s a bit like rooting for the US in the world cup. i dislike myself for doing it, but can’t quite help it. what is it? does rooting for the US in the few cases when the US is the underdog even counts are “rooting for the underdog?”

  6. gio, the reason you root for the u.s in the world cup is because their unimaginative play reminds you of what you grew up watching. if you really wanted to root for an underdog you’d root for the ivory coast or ghana or costa rica (countries with far less infrastructure and global support).

    cheering for the california vintners is really cheering against the snooty french, which is always acceptable. in terms of profits, market penetration etc. i don’t think the california industry is much of an underdog. this crap probably only matters to francophilic foodies, who’ll likely scoff at these results anyway.

  7. arnab, of course i’m rooting for the african teams!!! i don’t wish the US to win the cup, god save us all. i just can’t help feeling a twinge of solidarity for them when they play against, say, brazil, germany, france, argentina, holland, the czech republic, etc. what worries me the most is that the bribing scandal may prompt me to root against italy *if* they play some serious underdog. and, again, i don’t know where my solidarity will go in italy vs. US. i have to wait till the game starts. and i can’t wait!

    what wesbite is best for thorough info? does any of the websites show live games?

  8. soccernet is good, though england-slanted. all the games are going to be on espn and abc. oh wait, you don’t have cable, do you?

    the italian scandal is apparently even more far-reaching than previously thought. some weeks ago the ac milan people were moralizing and demanding that juventus’s serie a trophies from the last few years be given to them; now it seems they, lazio and fiorentina are being investigated as well.

    cricket had a similar controversy some years ago. all the principal accused (many indians among them) were axed quite summarily from the national teams. i think you have to root against italy–if they do well it will be a) tainted and b) in the euphoria a lot of it will be swept under the carpet. if they get knocked out (unlikely as that is) the anger will probably fuel the investigation even more. i guess it isn’t that unlikely–that’s a tough, tough group: the czechs, the yanks and ghana.

  9. thing is, they will either a) win or b) lose whether i root for or against them. but the scandal has me pissed off. i’m happy though to hear to ac milan is involved as well. berlusconi team, ha ha ha.

    i am getting cable just for the world cup. naturalmente. in fact, i should probably get a move on. anyway, i wouldn’t be sorry (see my previous comments) if the yanks and ghana won the team, though i must say i haven’t followed the vicissitudes of the czechs. do they have a good team or an ancient, germanic team?

  10. the czechs have a very good team on paper. though a lot depends on jan koller coming back strong from injury. this will be this team’s last hurrah either way.

    angola against portugal should be another game to watch. the angolan players seem quite caught up in it–they didn’t want to play portugal at all. i wonder if the portuguese care one way or the other. i really want to see the portuguese do well this time. figo is almost as beautiful to watch as zidane when he’s on form and this is his last hurrah as well.

    get cable now so you can get properly hyped up watching the pre-world cup shows on fox sports world (or whatever the channel is called now).

  11. the world cup transcends all boundaries.

    but i think i’ll split all these football posts into their own topic so that mark can ignore them all in one place.

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