1. Films “with” wine

2For instance, champagne becomes for the austere official of the Russian Communist Party Ninotchka, the main character of Ernst Lubitsch’s famous film (Ninotchka, 1939), an emblem of levity and opulence, the synthesis of a Western lifestyle far removed from the Spartan ways of the Soviets.

4Then there are the wines (e.g. Clos de Vougeot, Amontillado, Veuve Clicquot…) drunk in Babette’s Feast (1987), Gabriel Axel’s film set in a deprived Protestant village in the remote territory of Jutland at the end of the nineteenth century. In a context that does not attach any importance to the pleasures of gastronomy and conviviality, Babette prepares an unforgettable French dinner, impressing her guests but above all managing to manipulate them. Thanks to her cooking skills and ability to adroitly use the intoxicating properties of the wines served at her table, Babette succeeds in dissolving the fears and rigidity of the quarrelsome members of the devout Protestant community and in creating an atmosphere of sincere conviviality and friendship between them (see Mangiapane 2013, pp. 227-259). Another film—this time a horror movie, The Invitation (2015), directed by Karyn Kusama—stages a wine party. Will is invited by his ex-wife Eden to an old friends’ reunion at the house where they lived together and which she now shares with her new husband David. Amid tasting fine wine and, between one sip and the next, reminiscing about the good old times, the two hosts Eden and David reveal to their guests the reason for the gathering. Their goal is to introduce an ambiguous sect they joined in the period following the divorce, and which they now propose as offering a chance of recovery from trauma, of redemption and happiness. During the evening, everything tends towards the creation of a common and exclusive “us”, achieved by getting the guests to share their most intimate secrets. The moment of the toast arrives, which is supposed to seal the group’s newfound communion and intimacy. It is a solemn moment, which however hides an attempted poisoning fortunately unmasked by Will. Thus begins the strenuous resistance of the survivors to the aggressions from the members of the sect in a succession of horrifying scenes. In this case, wine is characterized in its anthropological and religious function as a sign of community adherence, linked to rituality and deep consciousness; it represents a starting point offered to spectators to better frame the mystical exaltation combined with the murderous madness of the killers at the centre of the plot.

5These cinematographic examples, arbitrarily plucked from a much broader and varied inventory of instances that run through the history of cinema, usefully highlight a small part of all the virtualities of meaning that wine can play as an actor of taste in the films in which it is consumed.

2. Films about wine

8This is why, through a comparative analysis, we will seek to uncover the common issues of a discourse on wine that can be read within a broader horizon linked to gastronomic cinema. We shall refer to the category of films that put food at the centre of the narrative, which has become an actual film genre. Among the most famous and representative examples of this genre we can mention Babette’s Feast (1987), Big Night (1996), Chocolat (2000), A Touch of Spice (2003), Ratatouille (2007), Julie & Julia (2010), The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014), to which many others could be added. What these films have in common is that they postulate the background of a society governed by an abstract, disembodied ideology, that favours the intelligible dimension to the detriment of the sensible one. Thus, the predominance of a radical interpretation of religion (such as the Protestantism in the Denmark of Babette’s Feast), or that of a logic of profit that privileges the abstract values of economic rationality at the expense of gustatory pleasure (Ratatouille), are undermined by the arrival of strangers who cook and eat differently from the members of the community to which they present themselves. It is indeed facing their scandalous presence that society is called to take a stand: what to do with otherness? Accept it? Reject it? Assimilate it? Ghettoize it? Many culinary films call into play the issues of interculturality and affiliation, staging identities confronting otherness and characterizing foreign chefs as agents of change (see Mangiapane 2014).

9If it is true that much gastronomic cinema, with its stories, poses the problem of otherness and of the coexistence between different subjects—making characters that carry heterodox culinary/cultural identities (Ibid.) interact in the same context—the films that put wine at the centre of their plots seem to tread a different path. Rather than evoking otherness, many of them are configured as great return narratives in which the heroes are called upon by destiny to retrace their life path, and to reunite, through wine, with their own deepest identity.

2.1. Stories about production

11This dialectic is also reproduced on a personal scale. Many wine films highlight the benefits of moving to the countryside after having lived in the city. Eric Rohmer’s Autumn Tale (1998) frames this type of situation in the character of the no-longer-young Magali. Newly widowed, Magali moves to the home of her deceased father, from whom she has inherited the vineyard. From that moment on she will dedicate herself to making good wine in a region unfairly considered minor, the Côtes du Rhône. The leading character’s personality traits mirror that of the surrounding countryside: Magali is tough but sanguine, lonely but generous. Her choice to move to the country allows her to refocus her identity, endowing her with a passion and a job that can fill her day. The modernity of her approach is unsettling, characterized by contrast with that of the neighbouring farmers. They indeed regard her as a “fanatic” for the sole fact that she has chosen to produce her wine without using chemical agents. At one point, Magali takes her friend Isabelle to visit her vineyard. Here, she takes the opportunity to explain her oenological philosophy (“Listen, you’ll say I’m pretentious, but I think of what I do as a craft… not as a trade. I hate that word trade! I don’t trade in the fruit of the soil, I honor it!”, 9’ 45’’ – 10’02”). It is to better clarify her method that, shortly after, she takes Isabelle to the boundary between her land and that of her neighbour. Once there, Magali invites her to notice the difference between the two vineyards: on one side, plants “smooth without a blade of grass and, on the other, its soil forming a proper vegetal ecosystem populated by various grasses.

13We have remarked how gastronomic cinema often focuses on the problem of the coexistence of characters who cook and eat in different ways. Many films dedicated to wine pose a different problem, calling upon the protagonists of their stories to come to terms with the past (what to do with an inherited château or a vineyard in the French countryside?). This premise originates multiple political approaches aimed at dissolving the conflict between past and present and at relaunching towards the future. Let us take one of the best-known films among the cases in point, A Good Year (2006), directed by Ridley Scott. The film opens with a flashback in which we see the protagonist, Max Skinner, as a child, in front of a chessboard on the terrace of a vast château immersed in the warm colours of the French countryside. Opposite him sits his uncle Henry. As his guardian, Henry takes care of the child, seeking to provide him with an education appropriate to their common rank as landowners and passionate wine growers. At this point, the story moves into the present. We are in a sidereal London, all mirrors and cold colours. Little Max is now a wealthy broker, well known for his ruthlessness in business. He leads an enviable life and is completely at ease in the metropolitan environment: he is successful, has money, women, a secretary who takes care of his every need, and a close friend with whom to share expensive nights out. It is the death of his uncle—with whom he had lost all contact for years—that marks the initial break: Max learns that he has inherited his estate. This event requires him to leave for France to complete the paperwork as quickly as possible and sell the property, before going back to his job. It is an understandable choice, as Max grasps neither the value of the estate nor its possible use for his life as a manager.

14At the heart of every film dedicated to wine is precisely the inability to understand its message: the many heirs who animate the stories fail to recognize the value that the vineyard holds for the family identity and for the territory in which it is inserted. Consequently, at first, they always want to sell, to dispose of the onerous burden, hurrying to convert this heritage into monetary value. It is precisely while they are engaged in disposing of the property that, forced by events, these characters find themselves embarking on a path of personal growth, progressively maturing an awareness that takes the form of an art of situated living, appropriating their new horizon of existence, until they become part of it. Thus, inheriting a vineyard requires a real conversion: understanding the value of this inheritance means, in fact, already changing, it means converting. Walking through the vineyards, relating to the longstanding workers of the estate and to the inhabitants of the surroundings (including the woman he will fall madly in love with), interacting with his uncle’s daughter who has come over from California in search of her roots, Max slowly finds himself and the sense of belonging that binds him to his land, recognizing the profound character of his uncle’s teachings as fundamental traits of his own existence. Wine becomes the measure of this rediscovery: the wine produced by the castle is bad and calls for a landlord to take the reins, continuing the interrupted family tradition.

15Many films focus upon the issue of the inheritance of the vineyard and the conversion of its heirs, among which Autumn Tale (1998), The Vintner’s Luck (2009), The Chateau Meroux (2011), Tu seras mon fils (2011), Return to Burgundy (2017), The Last Prosecco (2017), Wine to love (2018), From the vine (2019).

2.2. Stories about consumption

16Other films pose the problem of wine consumption and of the attitude to be adopted towards it. Two significant titles in this regard are particularly worth dwelling upon. These are the famous Sideways (2004) by Alexander Payne and the lesser-known Saint Amour (2016) by Gustave Kervern and Benoît Delépine. Both films, one American and the other Franco-Belgian, revolve around a trip through the wine regions of their respective countries undertaken by two pairs of characters, two friends in the first, and a father and son in the second. As we said, if there is one thing that is evident from watching films about wine, it is that the wine cannot be considered as a mere drink and as an end in itself. If wine strikes a note, if it really leaves a mark on one’s consciousness, one should not resist its call but rather reach out to it in the lands of its production, immersing oneself within its environment. This is precisely what Miles and Jack, the protagonists of Sideways (2004), do by setting out to the Santa Ynez Valley wine country in California. It is interesting to note how the two characters embody completely different types, one a hypersensitive and introverted teacher with an obsession for becoming a writer, the other a low-level actor, gymnast, and unrepentant womanizer. Such an assortment makes it possible to bring out their characters by difference. This is also evident in their opposite approach to tasting, of which Miles, unlike Jack, demonstrates solid mastery. The issue of attributing meaning to wine returns. For Miles, wine tasting means recognizing the visual, gustatory, and olfactory qualities of wine, in spite of their lack of immediacy. For him, approaching a wine is a complex operation. For one thing, it presupposes prior knowledge of the vines and of their organoleptic characteristics. To this, we must add the assumption of a peculiar epistemic stance, which consists in making oneself open to be impressed by the emerging sensations that stem from tasting. At the same time, one must also find words to describe one’s perception by putting it in the form of a narrative. This is what Miles does, reveling in his ability to assume such an attitude, the predominant trait of which is hypersensitivity. Miles delights in being able to recognize every slightest scent arising from the wine, presenting himself as a hypersensitive taster: a peculiar quality that can easily be made to shift from his specific competence to a general way of being. In short, wine endows him with a modus percipiendi that becomes a modus vivendi, a hypersensitive and attentive way of relating to others. All this stands out, as we said, by difference: the casual attitude with which his friend Jack approaches others goes hand in hand with his inability to taste. The two friends’ tour of the wineries of the valley, interspersed with flirting and drunkenness, will only clarify this difference in sensibility that has the effect of glorifying Miles’ personality to the detriment of Jack’s, whose irresponsible obliviousness is considered through a paternalistic and indulgent gaze.

18The idealization of the figure of the taster embodied by Miles (and criticized in films such as Mondovino) would appear to be challenged by another film that was released twelve years after Sideways: Saint Amour (2016). The protagonists of the story—two bull farmers, Jean and Bruno, father and son, respectively—take part in the agricultural fair in Paris. The two are characterized by their bêtise. Their way of interacting is off-putting: they are burly, rude, rough and ignorant, and not ashamed of it. They are also unhappy, however. Jean is still mourning his deceased wife and Bruno is frustrated because he does not have a partner and is sick of working on the farm with the animals. Bruno also drinks too much. At the fair, their greatest expression of freedom is going around the wine producers’ stands getting drunk, virtually travelling all over France without leaving the exhibition hall. It is precisely from the frustration they experience in the non-place of the fair that, after hiring a taxi driver to drive them around, the two decide to travel along the French wine routes. The two protagonists’ relationship with wine is the opposite of that of Miles and Jack: rather than tasting it, they quaff it. Even the Saint-Amour that gives the film its title is served without their realizing it. The wine restores their bodies during their innocent forays far and wide among the most important wine regions of the world, but all this happens placidly: no sophisticated tasting, no touring of exclusive wineries and restaurants, but rather running into different people along the road and above all the encounter with a female figure, that of Venus, who will be relied upon for consoling their despair and accepting, as well as lovingly satisfying, their sexual needs. All this will have the effect of restoring balance in the lives of the restless farmers and even the taxi driver to such an extent that, at the end of the journey, they will decide to start a new life together.

Conclusion

20From this brief overview, it can be appreciated how cinema represents an ideal medium for the dramatization of some strongly political aspects of the contemporary discourse on wine. It is precisely through cinema that the conflicts underpinning this discourse become recognizable and can be presented to viewers as political options on which to test themselves in everyday life. Just think of the hype created by films like Mondovino (2004) or Natural Resistance (2014), capable of mobilizing groups of new producers that are sensitive to the demands they raise and equally large groups of consumers eager to adopt a critical and committed—as well as philosophically aware—attitude towards wine consumption. Still, films like Sideways have played a crucial role in popularizing a philosophy of approaching wine based on wine tasting across wine routes.

21Exploring the films that revolve around the production and consumption of wine allows us to describe the coordinates of its discourse, recognizable from an eminently political standpoint. On a more general level, for example, we have observed that all the films reviewed are positioned on an axis that opposes the city to the countryside. The fundamental meaning proposed by wine is linked to the refusal of the factory and of the homologation it imposes and finds its reason in a re-evaluation of the countryside and its collective and individual rhythms, focusing on an existential stance promoting slowness and the search for a renewed and more conscious balance between nature and culture. Loving wine means—as the films about it seem to suggest—taking a stand on this dialectic in favour of a lifestyle that repudiates fast food and fast living.

22There is more. Most of the characters in these films can be comprised in the thematic role of the heir. Inheriting the vineyard calls upon its owners to assess its value. How much is a vineyard really worth? This appraisal leads the characters to engage in profound soul-searching, to think about their happiness (what is more political than happiness?) and to reflect upon whether it is even sensible to continue supporting the lifestyle they have led up to that moment. In short, they reason on the “value of values” (see Greimas & Fontanille 1991, pp. 36-37; Fabbri 1991; and the systematization offered in Fontanille & Zilberberg 1998, pp. 11-27). Is it worth being rich if the only freedom you are allowed is to hang on the walls of your office a reproduction of a Van Gogh painting that you have to keep locked up in a vault for fear of it being stolen? This is the question that Max, the protagonist of A Good Year (2006), asks his boss, when he has already decided to change his life. As a sign of his conversion, he will choose to use his pension bonus to buy that very painting, and candidly display it on the premises of his new restaurant in France. Like Max, when faced with a similar life decision, the protagonists of the films dedicated to wine can only overturn the table, and choose to return home. As a matter of fact, it is a real return, as their newly acquired awareness comes from a critical rereading of the past. There is always the spirit of some grandfather, uncle or father who passed away to inspire them, suggesting the way to overcome the bleak feeling of uprootedness imposed by the city.

23However, on closer inspection, the specific terms of such a turnaround are not always the same. While in 2004, that of Miles and Jack in Sideways was seemingly presented as an adequate choice of critical consumption, ten years later, the new winemakers of Natural Resistance developed a severe critique of the oenological model that the two characters ended up symbolizing. It is precisely from such a shift in sensibility that a film like Saint Amour can be explained: it is precisely the way in which the two farmers portrayed in the film will beat the same routes already traveled far and wide by enophiles from all over the world to point to the emperor with no clothes and in which the film configures itself as a critique of oenological discourse. But their example will also represent an opening towards the acknowledgment that “We are elements in motion that perceive. We perceive by moving ourselves, and while we perceive we live and flow, changing by transforming ourselves through that which we encounter” (Perullo 2021, p. 43). Saint Amour is very keen to show, once again controversially, how, along the road travelled in these journeys and in the stories they incessantly weave, wine still plays a role—and this is the important thing—emotionally marking our life.