Customer Reviews

Mondovino (Original French Version with English subtitles - French Language Cover)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

"Mondovino" is filmmaker and sommelier Jonathan Nossiter's examination of the politics and personalities of the wine industry that have influenced the taste of wines worldwide in the past 25 years. Some regard the rise of wine critics and consultants and the globalization of wineries as a boon to business, allowing more access to wine for more people and more profit for the industry. Others lament the "Rolland-Parker marriage and the Napa-ization of wine", calling wine conglomerates like Mondavi "terroirists", with their high-tech young wines and disregard for place. Nossiter is an opponent of the current trend toward homogenization in wines. But the film may be of interest to wine-lovers of all stripes, since it allows both sides to articulate its viewpoint and to talk about wine, on 3 continents and in 5 languages -all of which Nossiter speaks. "Mondovino" is too long and repetitive at 2 hours and 15 minutes, but it has been edited down from a 10-part, 10-hour television series which may have aired in Europe. "Mondovino" was filmed by Jonathan Nossiter and Stephanie Pommez with a digital video camera that is usually handheld. The camera jiggles way too much for comfort, and the close zooms on people's eyes are due the camera's inability to hold focus. The film's technical limitations do detract from its watchability. In English, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish with English subtitles.

On the side of "terroir", wine as an "expression of the personality of the place" or "somewhereness", French vintners Aimé Guibert and Hubert de Montille wax poetic and get philosophical about Man's relationship with wine. Guibert was a major player in the "Mondavi Affair" in the town of Aniane, France, where townspeople, environmentalists, and anti-globalization groups came together to prevent Mondavi from constructing a mega-vineyard nearby. De Montille speaks candidly about his wines and family, and is one of "Mondovino"'s big personalities. Prominent figures in the corporate world of wine include Tim and Michael Mondavi, Garen and Shari Staglin, Patrick Leon -technical director at Mouton-Rothschild, Leo McCloskey of Enologix, the largest wine consultant agency in the U.S., and members of the Frescobaldi and Antinori families in Italy, who were rivals to partner with Mondavi in the deal that resulted in Mondavi's buyout of Ornellaia.

But the most interesting and controversial proponents of "brands" and the global market are Michel Rolland, wine consultant for over 100 properties in 12 countries, and wine super-critic Robert Parker. Rolland is witty and arrogant to a fault, but he's straightforward and rather funny if you don't take him seriously. He admits to imposing his own tastes on the world of wine. His solution to everything seems to be "just micro-oxygenate". Hundreds of wineries worldwide change their wines to suit him. And the man with the palate of gold smokes; his taste buds are fried. Robert Parker is less colorful, but more complicated. He speaks of the influence of the Watergate era on his thinking. He strove to dispel the conflict of interest in rating wines and monopoly of opinion by the Old World vintners by introducing the objective critic, with the intention of making wine writing more pro-consumer. His detractors would argue that Parker's intention was to help the California wine industry by rating wines highly that were oaky, as young wineries use new oak casks to hide their lack of "terroir". In any case, Parker seems to have replaced one tyranny of taste with another. Not coincidentally, Robert Parker and Michel Rolland, who are friends, have similar tastes in wine. When a wine is poorly rated by Parker, the vineyard hires Rolland to consult, and then the rating goes up -which looks an awful lot like a racket.

I'm not a wine drinker, so I'm not inclined to take sides in the culture vs commerce/ terroir vs brands battle. Some people will find "Mondovino" revolutionary while others will find it alarmist. Jonathan Nossiter makes astute and intriguing observations in the film, but I think announcing the death of diversity in wines would be premature. It strikes me that the wine industry is a victim of its own success. Improved technologies and increasing wealth have created a global market for wine. It would be impossible to keep up with the demand without young wines. And now consumers' palates as well as critics' have adapted to it. Industrialization brought the same fate to many industries. But that doesn't necessarily mean the demise of small-scale, individualist products. There is normally a specialty market for them. "Mondovino" reminds me of the Scotch whisky industry in the 19th century. Single malts went out of fashion due to high cost, inconsistent quality, and small scale production. The patent still, which could produce whisky much faster than the old pot stills, created the rise of grain whiskies and blends. Blends are a homogenized product, marketed by brand as opposed to place. It was actually corporate buy-outs that led to the resurgence of single malts in the late 20th century and a subsequent improvement in the blends. Most Scotch whisky distilleries are owned by conglomerates now, who find no reason to abandon traditional methods of making single malts. They created a global market for them, and they own the grain distilleries too.

The DVD (Think Films 2005): There are 2 bonus features: Part VI of the 10-part "Mondovino" series, entitled "Quo Vademus?" and an audio commentary with filmmaker Jonathan Nossiter. "Quo Vademus?" is eclectic in theme, but focuses primarily on the idea of sprucing up young wines with new oak, a lawsuit against Robert Parker involving some Burgundy wine, and taste being entirely personal. If you're really into wine and enjoyed the film, you'll probably like the audio commentary. Nossiter talks about the people in the film, their reactions, and his approach to the subject. He does discuss themes of globalization, but avoids commenting on what the film means, preferring people to draw their own conclusions. Subtitles available for the film in English and French.

In this sprawling two-hour-plus documentary in which there is no narration, we see charming, sympathetic, sometimes cranky old French and Italian men who talk about the origins of wine as being religious and spiritual with each region linked to a specific taste, flavor, and character of wine. These old wine makers look on with foreboding doom and disgust at the new global wine makers who, catering to Americans' infantile tastes ("easy to drink wines") and who favor oak to "terroir"(the earthy tastes in many French wines)are changing the way wines are made forever. It seems the small wineries are being bought out by the big corporations, synthetic methods are used, everyone is creating a McDonalds Bic Mac wine that is predictable, doesn't need ageing, and caters to wine critic Robert Parker's personal tastes and biases (he loves the big California wines so the Europeans are emulating that model.)

The profiles of philistines, vulgarians, and other avaricious types are remarkable in that the director just let's them talk and reveal themselves. They are really like caricatures of villians in action films. To hear one wealthy family transplanted to Argentina talk about the indigenous people as being lazy for example is almost too much to bear.

The most touching part of the film is the relationship between an ageing curmudgeon wine maker, fully of witty philosophical quips, and his daughter who shares his sensibility. She tells her father she is quitting the big winery she is working at because it has sold out. Her brother, who has business leanings, seems hell-bent on ruining his father's legacy. This triangle between father and his daughter and son is what rises this film to the level of a truly excellent documentary.

One last bit of praise. The director, who interviews his subjects in the film, seems fluent in many languages: French, Italian, Spanish, and so on. Being able to speak his subjects' language gave him more access and this helped the film immensely.

For those who have not yet seen the film, I recommend it only to wine buffs and recommend that you FIRST watch the DVD's bonus feature, "Quo Vademus?" (Part 6 of the original made-for-TV 10-part series). I think I'd have understood and enjoyed the main film better had I seen that first.

I found it interesting that, while most reviewers slammed the hideous camera work, it was not until I read the 18th of 18 reviews on Amazon (plus many elsewhere) that I found someone else annoyed by the mostly unreadable subtitles. I could almost learn the several languages more quickiy than I could decode the pale-on-pale subtitles.

While I very much struggled to follow the film in many places (and had to replay many parts, some of them several times), found it too long and disjointed, sometimes boring, I still thought it worthwhile for me. I enjoy drinking and learning about wine, live surrounded by vineyards, and have two family members in the wine business. I did learn a lot from the film, including how much I still have to learn about much of the business, especially in Europe.

On the other hand, I found the obvious conclusion that the artisanal quality of wine growing and making are nearly swallowed up by marketing, technology, and profit to be premature and perhaps somewhat presumptuous. The Mondavi empire has collapsed. California is repleat with artisanal, boutique wineries that take (what we here in upstart California may presume to pass for) Terroir quite seriously. Navarro Vineyards, in Anderson Valley, for example (there are many, many others). Until I saw this film, I thought California's foremost wine consultant was Helen Turley, yet she was not even mentioned. She doesn't just "micro-oxygenate" wines but works right with the soil, the plants, the clusters, and every aspect of what goes into making a wine unique, including, I daresay, Terroir.

Watch the film but don't give up on individuality in wines, just yet.

This documentary seems to be aimed at confusing and provoking the viewer into a certain emotional reaction. But, in my opinion, only someone who is a newbie to the world of fine wine would fall for these techniques and I doubt that many people of casual interest in wine would be drawn to watch this documentary. I've been a wine collector for the past twenty years and I am as concerned about these issues as the film maker, but I don't think anyone is served by such a confused and simplistic approach. For example, I too believe that Robert Parker's influence in the business of fine wine collecting is of great concern. However, the film maker hammers a few issues over and over again while failing to delve into many others, some of which would tend to mitigate in Parker's favor. Why not give the man a fair trial?

For example, Parker does seem to like wines of great concentration that have been aged in French oak barrels and anyone following his reviews needs to be aware of this. However, Parker has also exerted great influence over wine makers to stop fining and filtering their wines. He's pushed for organic and biodynamic vineyard practices and for low yields based on more rigorous grape selection at harvest, which also tends to lower profits. He rewards single-vineyard estate bottling and has championed lesser known varietals like the type that go into Chateauneuf Du Pape. One of his favorite wines from that region, based on his reviews, is made by Domaine Pegau, which fits into his paradigm of low yields and non-filtering, but this wine maker tends to age his wine in traditional old wooden foudres, not small French oak barrels. This all runs counter to the main theme of the film because these things tend to help reveal a wine's varietal and regional character as well as its terroir.

Further, you can watch the entire documentary without finding out that Parker does not write for a magazine and does not run any advertising in his newsletter. Further, before Parker began reviewing wine, the wines of Bordeaux were being sold based on the prestige of the brand names and ancient classifications that no longer had any relevance. Parker took on this out-dated and elitist system by reviewing the wines of Bordeaux with no concern for reputation or classification and the result was often that a wine of lower classification and significantly lower price achieved a score that was higher than the big-dollar, big-named wines coasting on age old reputation and out-dated classification.

What about the hundreds of family owned vineyards and artisanal wine makers who tend small parcels resulting in limited production that do not hire Rolland and who achieve high scores from critics like Parker?

If you don't know any of these things -- and you are not told any of this in the documentary -- of course all of those who praise Parker sound crazy and Parker sounds like a nut when he boasts of being inspired by Ralph Nader, a consumer advocate, or having been shaped by his reaction to Watergate.

As to the internationalization of wine styles, the film maker neglects to mention that Parker himself does not review wine all around the world. He has other writers reviewing wines. For example, for all of the focus on Italian wine in the documentary, you'd think the film maker would have mentioned that Parker himself hardly ever posts reviews of Italian wine in his newsletter. For years, Italian wine was reviewed by Daniel Thomases and in the past ten years or so, Italian wines have been reviewed by Antonio Galloni. Both of these writers have railed against the use of too much French oak in classic Italian wines like Brunello Di Montalcino.

The film maker also does a hatchet job on Robert Mondavi. He neglects to delve into how Mondavi built his company and he also neglects to mention that Parker has very seldom given a Robert Mondavi wine a score above 95 points, which is the rarified territory where trophy wine collectors become interested. A lot of hay is made about Mondavi buying interest in Ornellaia and the wine subsequently becoming a big seller. It was a popular and favorably reviewed wine before Mondavi bought into it -- that's why he bought it. Then, if you've been paying attention, you've been told by Mondavi's admirers that he is a tireless and talented spokesman for his wines. Doesn't it follow that he saw a great wine and knew that he could increase the value of his investment by using his talent for public relations to bring a fine wine to the attention of an even wider audience? Is that a crime? The film maker seems to indicate that it is, but his aim is scattershot. He seems to want us to resent anyone who has been successful in the wine business, no matter how they have achieved their success.

The film maker also brings us into the world of what is essentially bulk wine making. Firms that churn out hundreds of thousands of cases of mediocre wine. Basically, supermarket wine -- the kind you would see on the bottom shelves of your supermarket's wine aisle. Yes, these wines are completely unremarkable, have no regional character, are often sold under different labels even though it is the same wine, but this is all beside the point. These wines never achieve high scores from critics. If you're paying attention, which is difficult in this documentary, you might notice that the film maker does not make this clear -- he seems to want you to lump all of these issues together.

So, what about the other target, Michel Rolland, the wine consultant to the stars? The documentary makes quite a bit of the fact that Rolland consults on a lot of wines. Something like 100+. This is also cause for genuine concern. However, with regard to Ornellaia, which took up a good portion of the documentary, the film maker seems to intentionally confuse the chronology of events. He leads us to believe that Ornellaia, in Ludovico Antinori's hands was a local style wine and that Mondavi purchased it, brought in Michel Rolland and changed the wine. The fact is that Ludovico Antinori hired Michel Rolland, Rolland was a consultant on Ornellaia from the beginning, long before Mondavi's involvement, and there was no change in the style of wine after Mondavi's purchase. It was simply change in ownership.

Also, there are literally thousands and thousands of wines out there and it is still pretty easy to avoid drinking the wines on which Rolland has consulted if you do not like his influence. The film maker doesn't even delve into the many aspects of Rolland's influence so the viewer remains largely ignorant of the relevant issues. This would demand a more balanced, informative approach, trusting educated viewers to make up their own mind. Finally, there are plenty of wines out there on which Rolland does not consult and which are highly prized by serious wine drinkers, collectors and writers, including Robert Parker. What role does consumer demand play in all of this? Why not include some of this information to balance the documentary? Kudos to the film maker for bringing up some important issues, but the absence of all of this info and the fractured, incomplete, and confusing style of this documentary makes it valuable only to those looking for easy scapegoats and simplistic answers to serious issues, certainly not to those looking for an education.

Mondo Vino lives up to most, if perhaps not all, the praise it has received. Nossiter's range is remarkable, and he brings both talent and passion to the project. Much has already been said in previous reviews with which I agree. Certainly, for anyone interested in wine, I recommend the film highly, but it reaches far beyond that specialized audience.

Where one may find fault is in the overall polemical tone of the work. True, Nossiter doesn't editorialize in his own voice. He lets his villains hoist themselves by their own petards, and it can be revealing and entertaining to watch. But he is clearly out to make a point. He does this with great success, and I salute the achievement. But something is lost, artistically and philosophically, in such point-making. It could have been a great documentary; but it is still a very good one.

It is hard to imagine that a documentary with such elemental production values, shot in jerky handycam style, could be such an incisive, touching, and powerful examination of the wine industry and its personae. But it is.

The story is of the nobility, the megapolists, the honest and stubborn traditionalists, and the tiny producers on the very margins of the industry. The culture of wine production, the interplay between producers, critics, and consultants is exposed in vivid detail. What emerges is the story of mega wine companies who, in loose alliance with some dominant American wine critics (who come across as alternately earnest and self-important fools), dominate the industry, not only in sales, but in practice--replacing traditional methods with newer Americanized ones, and in the dominance of a particular consultant, who spreads the same taste over the globe, homogenizing wines at the expense of uniqueness.

The heroes are the little guys: the small wine producers, the Mexican laborers, the tiny vineyards in Brazil and Argentina, and the traditionalists in Britain, France and Italy. The villains are the vapid and self-absorbed Staglins, the good cop-bad cop, bearded-clean shaven Mondavis, the MBA-speak infected French wine CEOs, the Quiet American naivete of Robert Parker and the Ugly American arrogance of Jonathan Suckling, and the oleaginous Michel Rolland, wine homogenizer to the stars. Micro-oxygenate!

This film has all the right values and will be loved and hated by all the right people. Coming from a background in a parallel industry, the portraits rang true. Enthusiastically recommended.

Learn the inside of the Wine industry, meet the producers, see the deals and non-publicized trades ... My beloved part of this documentary was to travel to all those wineries, in Brazil, Chile, Sardinia, US, France ...

I've noticed that the reviews seem to be good or bad, depending on if the reviewer agrees or disagrees with the filmmaker's perspective. I'm fairly new to the wine hobby, so the subject matter was also pretty new to me. It was certainly interesting to see perspectives from a variety of people in the industry. It is also interesting to see the behind-the-scenes politics of wine. The filmmaker has an opinion, but I don't think it was overly stressed as all subjects spoke for themselves; i.e., he edited the film, but didn't put words into anyone's mouth.
As some have mentioned, the camera work is terrible, but the film is much more about what's being said than about what's being filmed. Happily, the subtitles are stationary, so the shoddy filming didn't bother me much. I'd recommend it for someone who, like myself, has a passion (or developing passion) for wine. For someone not particularly interested in wine, it's probably not worth watching.

I work in wine marketing and found the film an interesting piece documenting an important point in the history of the wine business. I can't imagine too many wine enthusiasts sharing my level of interest, however. My ADD wife refers to it as "MondoBoro" and had difficulty staying awake during our viewings.

From the artistic side, I found the hand-held camera to become tiresome after the first thirty minutes, and the dialogue-free shots out the car window of passing factories to get quickly old.

The director's bias may be summed up as "Big conglomerates bad. Small producers good." But this film is far from a Michael Moore diatribe. I found it to be a relatively even-handed, showing the inconsistencies and dysfunctionalities of small French producers right next to those from large, wealthy conglomerates.

Summary
The comments made by the director in the press are far more inflammatory than the movie itself. Closer to a documentary than a rant, this movie will be an imnportant piece documenting our current peirod in history - a turning point for th wine indutstry.

Dave@SidewaysWineClub.com

I am not sure why there are so many negative reviews, especially from people who claim they are wine collectors or wine lovers. I am a wine lover and I happen to work in the wine industry. Yes, the camera work is a bit shakey but I happen to think that the camreaman zooming in on a dog or other object now and then can be a little more interesting than a 2 minute shot of someone talking. Yes, the director is obviously biased against the Mondavis, Gallos and KJs of the world. Yes, he does ask some pointless, antagonistic questions and does take some cheap shots. However, listening to the Mondavis, Mothilie, deVillaine, Rolland, Braodbent or Parker talk is hugely insightful. There is so much insight from both camps...any real lover of wine will take quite a bit away from this movie. The filmmaker does a good job of showing that there are many people in the wine industry who are much more attracted to the glitz and glamour of the biz than they are attracted to the wine (a great example is the ex-CEO & wife who create a Tuscan villa in Napa, as well as the [...] who leads tours at Mondavi). All in all, this is a highly informative movie that will educate and enlighten anyone who is interested in the wine biz. I watched all the outtakes and still would have liked the movie to be longer...there must have been so many good interviews left on the cutting room floor.