Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Mondovino The Movie

We went to see "Mondovino" a couple of days ago and I have to say it is a must see movie about wine and globalization of wine or maybe more to the point the world hegemony of wine driven by Robert Parker.
As I have stated before, I am not a fan of his or Wine Spectator (who is also featured in the movie).
While I like some of the wine he likes, I like a lot more wine that he does not like and I respect and honor the differences between different wines and terroir.
unfortunately the wine world (or at least the buying public) have increasingly been showing traits that are normally attributed to Lemmings rather than higher mammals.
Alarming numbers of the producers and buying public are flocking a singular type or model of wine, that singular type being a anointed Robert Parker wine ( a wine given a high score by Robert Parker).
Most of these wines have been micro managed, doped up, and blended beyond all recognition as to their original type and origin to fit a model of wine championed by Mr Parker. In many instance (in my opinion) these wines are manipulated in such a way as to mimic long aging in a short period of time and t remove terrior or any local variation. I refer to it as the McDonald's model of winemaking, fast, global, insidious, and lacking a soul. In any case back to the movie...
It is a wonderful compare and contrast between traditional winemakers and people like Mondavi, Parker, and Rolland.
It chronicles the struggles (and occasional victories) of the traditional winemakers and terroir, against the global homogenization of wine as represented by the above.

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