Wine Film: "Sideways"

This past Monday night I curled up in one of my Snuggies, poured myself a glass of Pinot Grigio and turned

on the movie Sideways (2004). The movie is about two middle-aged guys who take a trip to California’s wine country and go to various wineries and restaurants to taste wine and have a two-man bachelor party for one of the characters who is about to get married. There is plenty of wine- and even more “sniffing and swirling”- in the film but there is also some debauchery and uncomfortable situations that the characters find themselves in during what was supposed to be a relaxing weekend.

            Overall, I enjoyed the film but was surprised that it really was focused almost entirely on wine (I was expecting it to just be kind of in the background/setting only) and was a little disappointed that it was not very funny as I was bracing myself for all sorts of wine-induced escapades by the main characters, Miles and Jack! The director, Alexander Payne, did  a great job of creating two different kinds of character, the “wine snob” (Miles) and the “wine amateur” (Jack). This balance of characters made things more interesting because two snobs would make it boring while two amateurs would probably have made the film resemble Jackass. I found that Sideways was very accurate in the way it incorporated wine in the visuals as well as the dialogue with only a few minor things that could be considered to be inaccurate; That being said, I have learned that a lot of things in the wine world are about personal preferences so what is right to one person may be wrong to another! An example of a situation in the movie was during the dinner scene on the “double date” with characters Maya and Stephanie (waitresses that Miles and Jack met in their travels), the group enjoyed some heavy full-bodied reds before dinner, switching to white wine with the main course. I noticed this to be particularly unusual because generally speaking, people start off with lighter wines (more often white), then transitioning into roses, heavier reds, then finally dessert wines or fortified wines. This was not necessarily incorrect in the film but was definitely unusual!

            I found on IMDB that the film was actually filled on location in Santa Barbara wine country so it must have been extremely accurate in expressing the experience that Miles and Jack would have had in their travels. Of particular interest to me are the vineyards themselves, so I was somewhat disappointed that much of the movie was spent in restaurants or tasting rooms as opposed to at wineries and in the vineyards. Now that I think about it though, it makes the movie much more realistic because very rarely do people frolic through the vines- they are in the tasting rooms!

           

Some things that I would not have known and/or picked up on in Sideways if I had not taken Geography of Wine (but definitely not the only things) are:

•   In the first dinner scene with Miles’ mother, the characters were drinking the wines out of the wrong glasses!
•   I knew that it was correct when Miles mentioned that Pinot Noir is grown primarily in Northern California (as opposed to Southern California) because of the cooler climate
•   At the first tasting, watching Jack learn to “sniff and swirl” was hilarious because his reaction was how I felt my first few times doing it and the facial expression was what a “non-wino” would definitely make in the situation!
•   There were so many terms thrown around by characters that helped me understand the scenes better:  “tannins” and what a “young” wine means, “flabby”, etc.
•   It was interesting to hear the wines in the movie described as being aged in French oak (Sauvignon Blanc in the date restaurant scene) because I now know that French oak and American Oak are two very distinct things
•   I actually learned from the movie that very few vineyards do a straight Cabernet Franc- this is something that I did not know before- this tells me something about the industry trends of the moment
•   When Miles was gushing over Opus One in the movie, I knew that it was a proprietary wine that is considered to be very good; since proprietary wines are a relatively new thing in the winemaking industry, it was nice to hear about the practice.

           

            It is a funny phenomenon how maturity or outside knowledge can change one’s perception of a book, a movie or even a joke. If you watch a movie as a kid and then go back and watch again when you’re an adult, you will likely catch things that went “over your head” the first time you watched. This usually happens with ‘adult’ references, but I definitely think that Sideways is a movie that will take on a whole different meaning and invoke a different type of reaction for people that are schooled in wine. I know that I giggled when Jack seemed so confused that Pinot Noir could be a white wine and Miles had to explain that the color in wine comes from the skin. This is something that would surely not be funny to me in the slightest if I had not already known that! I would definitely recommend the movie to anyone that is into wine or trying to get into wine because it has so many tidbits of knowledge and, as mentioned before, little jokes that would go over your head if you know nothing about wine. If the wine were taken out of the movie and only the mid-life crisis/ relationship drama sub-plots were left, I would not have liked the movie at all; for this reason, I ONLY recommend Sideways to people who know a thing or two about wine. Now I am busy planning my vacation to California wine country J

P.S. Gas was under $2 a gallon in the movie-how crazy!!!