[wine] More Mondovino

March 16, 2005 THE POUR Shake Wine, and Look What's Stirred Up By ERIC ASIMOV IF you want to start a fight, mention the documentary "Mondovino" to people in the wine business and step back. The film, by Jonathan Nossiter, argues that the homogenizing force of global commerce is threatening the distinctiveness of local cultures. But like "Fahrenheit 9/11" it has so polarized its audience that attention has veered away from the issues it raises. Instead debate has centered on Mr. Nossiter and whether he has portrayed his subjects responsibly or used them unfairly to further his argument. "Mondovino," which opens in New York next Wednesday, has been a hit in France, though a much debated one, and has been screened for people in the wine business. Watching it, it's easy to detect where Mr. Nossiter stands. Like a modern Thoreau, he offers a starkly divided world in which the monolithic forces of wealth, technology and marketing are at war with a pastoral peasantry. On one side in his portrayal are those who see wine as a commodity rather than an expression of history and culture. With modern technology and proper marketing, they can create a product in California or in Argentina or in France that makes you feel as if you are in a vineyard in Chianti. Obsessed with numerical ratings and salesmanship, these people value artifice over authenticity. Exhibit A in Mr. Nossiter's brief are companies like the Robert Mondavi Corporation and winery owners like Garen and Shari Staglin, millionaires who built an Italianate villa on a hillside once covered by forest in the Napa Valley. As Mr. Staglin gestures at the sweep of his property, which he says "was created out of nothing," you can practically hear frontiersmen slaughtering herds of buffalo. The villa, Mr. Staglin says, "is a showcase for our wines, our lifestyle, our commitments to charity." In figurative league with them are wine consultants like Michel Rolland of Pomerol, who in the film epitomizes a sort of soulless approach to winemaking, along with wine publications like The Wine Spectator and influential wine critics like Robert M. Parker Jr., whose powerful grip on world tastes makes him an overarching figure. Mr. Rolland has accused Mr. Nossiter of lies and betrayals, while Mr. Parker has denounced the film on the Web site erobertparker.com as "lying, distorting, misrepresenting and intentionally perverting people's points of view." On the other side are several small winemakers who speak with a wisdom seemingly borne of centuries of intimate contact with the earth. They are not concerned with image and see themselves as caretakers of a patrimony rather than lords of the manor. Typical among them is Hubert de Montille in Burgundy, whose funny suspenders and tart outlook place him among the canny locals who populate rustic romances like "Toujours Provence." Neal Rosenthal, an American wine importer who in the film is shown in sympathy with traditional winemaking practices, says that those who take their portrayals personally are missing the point. "I don't think it's about any individual," he said. "I think the film has sympathy for the place that wine has had in our Western culture for many centuries, and it's expressing a concern for something that is threatened." Mr. Nossiter relishes his role as a provocateur. "Under no circumstances do I want the audience to agree with me," he said in an interview. He insisted that he feels great sympathy with all the subjects in his film and that his intent was "getting inside the skin of globalization." "The film is polemical but not Manichaean," he said. "I don't believe there is good and bad." Even so, when Mr. Rosenthal portrays the wine world as "a battle between the resistance and the collaborators," it's hard not to believe that Mr. Nossiter agrees. He even goes out of his way to make explicit links between fascism and what he calls monopolistic thinking about wine. He digresses into seemingly irrelevant areas, for example asking Mr. Rolland's chauffeur, sitting in his car, why he does not go into wineries with his boss. The chauffeur is then shown behind a gate, clearly of the exploited class. The linkage is so provocative that more subtle points are lost. For example Mr. Parker, who comes off far better in the film than he may think, reflects on the days when he began writing about wine. He was influenced by Ralph Nader, he says, and as a consumer advocate was motivated by "the idea that everything's controlled by money and big business." Twenty-five years later Mr. Parker is the one in power, but the point floats by untouched. Other paradoxes pass unremarked. Aim� Guibert, owner of Daumas Gassac, a winery in the Languedoc, seems to be one of Mr. Nossiter's good guys. With a shock of white hair and a rugged countenance, he speaks from his vineyard as a man of nature, yet his pronouncements are as orotund as those from the commercial types. He speaks of winemaking as "a religious relationship between man and nature," and says: "It takes a poet to make a great wine. That's been replaced by wine consultants." Cut to Mr. Rolland. Unsaid is that Mr. Guibert went into the wine business with the help of �mile Peynaud, a great consultant of a previous generation. Mr. Nossiter also fails to pursue some important points to their logical end. For instance he allows Leo McCloskey, a consultant, to suggest that periodicals like The Spectator and The Wine Advocate, Mr. Parker's publication, offer good ratings in exchange for advertising. No effort is made to get a response; The Spectator vigorously denies this, and Mr. Parker does not accept advertising. Such flaws can alienate an audience that might be willing to debate other points. The most interesting character by far is Mr. de Montille of Burgundy, who seems able to take a long view. "It's not quite imperialism, but when you have power, as the U.S. does, you impose your culture," he says. "It's logical. Rome tried to impose its tastes." It's an important thought, and though Mr. Nossiter's villains aren't all Americans, it's worth discussing. Unfortunately that chance has been squandered. All you can hear is the shouting. -- ------------------------------ * * Dr. James Lee Ellingson, Adjunct Professor jellings(a)me.umn.edu * * University of Minnesota, tel: 651/645-0753 fax 651 XXX XXXX * * Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *