Grape Fields of Dreams

In vino veritas

...an ancient Latin phrase meaning, "In wine there is the truth"

Short of happenstance, say, if a prehistoric hunter-gatherer neglected an animal-skin sackful of grapes and the fermented juice fueled a proto-religious experience, the actual agricultural production of wine can be traced back to 6000-5000 B.C., in Georgian kingdoms on the eastern shore of the Black Sea and in what would become modern-day Iran. Archaeologists unearthed proof of the domestication of grape vines in the Near East, Mesopotamia and Egypt in third millennium B.C..

The earliest evidence of wine production in Europe dates back 6500 years. Wine was common, of course, in ancient Greece and Rome. Several of today’s wine-producing regions in western Europe had roots in Phoenician and Roman plantations, while much of modern wine culture derives from practices of the Greeks, who made wine in their numerous colonies in Italy, Spain and France. The popular modern Greek wine known as retsina originated in the tradition of lining wine jugs with tree resin, thus infusing the contents with its distinctive flavor.

In Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey, wine was depicted as being served in mixing bowls and, known as "Juice of the Gods," was not traditionally taken in its undiluted state. Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and revelry, frequently mentioned in the poetry of Homer and the fables of Aesop, was often referred to as the giver of unmixed wine. He was known to the Romans as Bacchus, and the drunken, ecstatic frenzy he inspired was called "bakkheia."

In Homer’s The Odyssey, Odysseus, the mythical Greek hero who masterminded the Trojan Horse ruse that led to the sack of Troy, finds his voyage home delayed when he and his shipmates are trapped on the island of the Cyclopes. Held captive in the cave of the cannibalistic Polyphemus, Odysseus devises a plan to blind the one-eyed giant after getting him drunk on what Homer called the "black wine."

In Egypt, wine-making thrived in the Nile Delta after grape cultivation was introduced around 3000 B.C. Wine, predominantly red, played an important role in royal ceremonies. Superstition developed around the drinking of wine, no doubt due to its resemblance to blood. Drunkenness, according to the Greek historian Plutarch’s Isis and Osiris, "drives men out of their senses and crazes them, in as much as they are then filled with the blood of their forebears."

Like Egypt’s lower classes, much of the ancient Middle East preferred beer as a daily libation instead of wine. Wine did figure prominently in the ritual life of Jewish people near the Mediterranean coast, dating to earliest records. Getting drunk from wine is a popular recurring theme in tales from the Old Testament. In the wake of the Flood, Noah, "the first tiller of the soil," grew a vineyard and after enjoying the fruits of his labor, passed out naked in his tent. His son Ham stumbled upon the patriarch’s undressed state and told his brothers, Shem and Japheth, who discreetly backed into the tent with a blanket and, averting their eyes, quickly covered their father (below). For arcane reasons obscured in the mists of Biblical translation, Noah, once he sobered up, cursed the descendants of Ham.

After God reduced the twin sin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to a smoldering rubble of brimstone and ashes, and transformed Lot’s wife into a saline pillar, Lot’s two daughters, fretting over the ticking of their biological clocks, each got dad drunk on wine on consecutive nights and slept with him to conceive (below). Apparently, one could take the girls out of Sodom, but one couldn’t take Sodom out of the girls.

In the Old Testament, Proverbs 20:1 warns, "Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler; and whoever is led astray by it is not wise." Hosea 4:11 advises, "Wine and new wine take away the understanding." Proberbs 23:31-33 instructs, "Do not look at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly. At the last it bites like a serpent, and stings like an adder."

On the other hand, the first miracle performed by Jesus in the New Testament was turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana (above). One of his last acts was offering wine as a remembrance of his blood at the Last Supper with his Disciples.

Wine played an integral role in the diet of ancient Italians, and the Roman Empire left an indelible impact on the evolution of viticulture, and wine-making became a meticulously managed industry. When mixed with herbs and minerals, wine was believed to offer medicinal rewards. It was not uncommon to dissolve a pearl in wine for better health. (Below) Cleopatra supposedly told Mark Anthony she would "drink the value of province" in a single cup of wine when she placed an expensive pearl in the vintage.

When Europe suffered the invasions and upheavals of the Dark Ages in the wake of the fall of the Roman Empire, the Roman Catholic Church stood firm, staunchly supporting the wine necessary for celebration of the Holy Mass and faithfully preserving the technology behind grape cultivation and wine-making.

Galileo once described wine as "sunlight held together by water." There is something profoundly cinematic in the dazzling beauty of a sun-dappled vineyard - a breathtaking masterpiece of earthy art, celebrating both the flawless wonder of nature and the marvelous engineering of agriculture. Surprisingly, and sadly, only a handful of major motion pictures have taken advantage of the spectacular landscapes of the vineyards of California and Europe. Fortunately, you have diligent connoisseurs in the moviehouse who selected the most memorable grape fields, presented here in a handful of postcards from our gift shop.

"A Walk in the Clouds" (1995) stars Keanu Reeves as Paul, a World War II veteran whose homecoming to a strained marriage leads to a new career as a traveling salesman. On a bus to Sacramento, California, he meets Victoria (portrayed by Spanish actress Aitana Sanchez-Gijon), an unmarried, pregant Mexican-American whose family owns a vineyard in the Napa Valley (pictured below). Circumstances compel Paul to pose as her husband for her traditionalist family.

Victoria’s stern father is played by Giancarlo Giannini, the great Italian actor best known for his collaborations with director Lina Wertmuller in the 1970s, notably "The Seduction of Mimi," "Love and Anarchy," "Swept Away" and "Seven Beauties." Contemporary moviegoers might be familiar with Giannini’s role as French agent René Mathis in "Casino Royale" and "Quantum of Solace." At the age of 80, Anthony Quinn deftly steals the film as the family patriarch, who, according to critic Roger Ebert, "sees and understands everything."

"A Walk in the Clouds," based on a 1942 Italian film, "Four Steps in the Clouds," was directed by Mexican-born Alfonso Arau, who also made the critically acclaimed "Like Water for Chocolate" (1992). Incidentally, as an actor, Arau is recognizable to movie buffs as Captain Herrera in Sam Peckinpah’s "The Wild Bunch" and as bandit chief "El Guapo" in "Three Amigos."

In his review, Roger Ebert noted Arau’s fondness for throwing caution to the wind in his pursuit of "unabashed sentiment, for glorious excess, for love so idealistic it seems never to have heard of the 20th century." Pointing out that the director "uses special effects at several points in the film to push his landscapes beyond the real, into the ideal." Ebert praised the film "as a glorious romantic fantasy, aflame with passion and bittersweet longing…that to me sang with innocence and trust."

"Sideways" (2004) follows two middle-aged pals, played by two of our favorite character leads, Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church, who head out on a week-long road trip to Santa Barbara’s wine country. Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh ("Grey’s Anatomy") costar as locals who become romantically involved with the men.

Winning the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay (from the book by Rex Pickett) and Golden Globe Awards for Best Screenplay and Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy, "Sideways" was directed by Alexander Payne (then married to actress Sandra Oh), who co-wrote the script with Jim Taylor - a creative partnership which previously produced "Election" and "About Schmidt."

The New York Times critic Manohla Dargis praised the director for his courage in casting Paul Giamatti "in the central role, not because he isn’t up to the challenge, but because he’s neither pretty nor a star, two no-no’s in the contemporary film industry…But it takes more than courage to push actors to the limits of their talents, which Mr. Payne does here. You need to understand that the truth of both a human being and a screen performance doesn’t exist only in grace and beauty, but in small fissures and cracks…"

Roger Ebert, who gave the film four stars in his review (headlined "’Sideways’ brilliant any way you look at it"), noted, "What happens during the seven days adds up to the best human comedy of the year - comedy, because it is funny, and human, because it is surprisingly moving."

At one point in the movie, Giamatti’s character waxes passionately on the superiority of Pinot noir over Merlot. After the film’s release, sales of Merlot in the western U.S. fell 2% while Pinot noir sales rose 16%. The movie itself was a surprise hit and resulted in increased tourism for the filming location in Santa Ynez Valley (above).

A harmless, feel-good romantic comedy like "A Good Year" (2006) might seem an unlikely reunion for Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe, respectively the serious-minded director and rugged star of the sword-and-sandal epic "Gladiator," and, in fact, a number of reviews dismissed the production as, in the words of The New York Times’ Stephen Holden, "a calculated charm offensive by an actor not known for his courtly manners." According to Holden, Crowe’s character, "a ferociously aggressive London bond trader who inherits a small vineyard from his Uncle Henry (Albert Finney) and quickly mellows into a rich, happy bon vivant, is the sort of role usually taken by Hugh Grant, or, decades earlier, Cary Grant."

Holden called "A Good Year" a "palate cleanser" for director Scott, whose "outpouring of would-be blockbusters" included, besides "Gladiator," "Black Hawk Down" and "Kingdom of Heaven." Costarring Marian Cotillard, the French actress who won an Oscar for her role as Edith Piaf in "La Vie en rose," "A Good Year" was based on a novel by Peter Mayle, author of A Year in Provence. Coincidentally, Ridley Scott and Mayle had worked together three decades earlier in advertising and television commercials. Both men now own land in the Luberon region of Provence (below).

Kenneth Turan, of the Los Angeles Times, deemed "A Good Year" "one of those ever-popular movies in which impossibly rich people, clueless about what really matters, turn out to be incapable of enjoying the simple things in life…a romantic comedy made by individuals with no special feelings for the genre who stretch a half hour’s worth of story to nearly two hours."
In the St. Petersburg Times, Steve Persall referred to the film as "a chick flick for dudes." A British critic called it "tourist gastro-porn," while Variety’s Todd McCarthy wrote it off as "an excuse for the filmmakers and cast to enjoy a couple of months in Provence and for the audience, by proxy, to spend a couple of hours there…this little picnic doesn’t amount to much but goes down easily enough."

The last word goes to critic Stephen Holden: "’A Good Year’ is the movie equivalent of poring over a glossy brochure for a luxury vacation you could never afford."

"Bottle Shock" (2007) is, to quote Roger Ebert, "a charming fictionalized version" of the events that led to the true-life Judgment of Paris in 1976, when the wines of California’s Napa Valley beat the best French wines in a blind taste test in France (Ebert emphasized that "all the judges were French!"). The competition quashed the myth of the superiority of French wines and forever changed the fortunes of Napa Valley wineries.

Bill Pullman portrays real-life Jim Barrett, then a struggling vintner who runs a debt-ridden California vineyard named Chateau Montelena. Alan Rickman (above), always a reliably formidable talent, delivers a dryly comic performance as Barrett’s nemesis, so to speak, Steven Spurrier (again a real-life person), a British expatriate who owns a small shop dubbed "The Academy of Wine" in Paris and whose lofty ambitions spark the momentous wine-tasting contest. In one exchange, Barrett wonders why he dislikes Spurrier, who replies, "Because you think I’m an asshole. Actually, I’m not an asshole. It’s just that I’m British, and, well, you’re not."

The real Spurrier (above) was not silent in questioning the accuracy of the script. "There is hardly a word that is true…and many, many pure inventions as far as I’m concerned." He was particularly rankled by the portrayal of himself as "an impossibly effete snob," which he found "deeply insulting."

Directed by Randall Miller, "Bottle Shock" premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Although the factual events may be unfamiliar to many, the film, according to Roger Ebert, "is more than the story. It is also about people who love their work, care about it with passion and talk about it with knowledge."

Our last vineyard is, as they say, off the beaten path, and the vintage is undeniably an acquired taste. Film fans would instantly recognize veteran character actor James Hong (above) as the supernatural sorcerer Lo Pan in director John Carpenter’s "Big Trouble in Little China" and as the blind ping pong mentor Wong in the 2007 comedy "Balls of Fury." Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Hong wrote, directed and starred in a low-budget horror outing called "The Vineyard" in 1989.

Fearful of aging, centuries-old evil vintner Dr. Po (Hong) uses the blood of hapless captives to make his famous wine, the rejuvenating qualities of which demand a price of $50,000 a bottle. In this intoxicatingly confusing flick, a group of actors are lured to Po’s eerie mansion for a week-long "audition" for roles in a movie about wine-making. The doctor’s other avocations include chaining half-clad women in his cellar, planting zombies in his yard, and, at the age of 60, grooving to bad '80s dance tunes. According to The Psychotronic Video Guide author Michael J. Weldon, the film, which costars Playboy Playmate Karen Witter and Cheryl Madsen (sister of "Sideways" actress Virginia Madsen), tried "to be like some of the wilder Asian horror movies and includes martial arts," not to mention a woman who unexpectedly vomits spiders.