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Mondovino

The film that gives the wine a different taste




(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

In the Mediterranean countries, wine is still culture. We do not go back many decades before every farmer (and at that time almost all farmers) had their small or large vineyard. Being able to taste wine is therefore part of every good French or Italian child's learning. So it's no wonder Jonathan Nossiter's movie Mondovino has made the discussion lively around French bistro tables. And in the press. Few films have created such a heated debate in recent years. A journalist in the newspaper le Figaro recommends wine-loving readers to spend the money on a bottle of wine rather than on a cinema ticket to the film. Gérard Lefort of Libération reviewed the film under the headline “We toast Champagne for Mondovino! "

Documentary

Mondovino – a documentary of 2 hours and 40 minutes – has made the French go home in the last year after it was included in the selected films in Cannes last year. The film takes us to a number of very different wineries. The youngest, Battista and Lina Columbu in Sardinia have no more than 15 acres of vineyards. The largest, the Mondavi family in the Napa Valley in California, can hardly be called winemakers in the traditional sense. They run a worldwide empire in the industry. Among these we find the world's foremost wine connoisseurs: Michel Rolland in Bordeaux and Michael Broadbent at Christies in London. Further

the world's most influential wine critic, Robert Parker, Neal Rosenthal, a passionate New York wine merchant and the noble Frescobaldi family in Florence who have driven wine production for 700 years and dreaming back to the Mussolini era.

Gérard Lefort writes that he "feels like just drinking water" after seeing the film. Others will enjoy the wine more after gaining better knowledge of how it is produced. But the film is not aimed directly at those who seek knowledge about good vintages. The reason for its success lies rather in the fact that it addresses more general topics and shows how these affect wine production.

Wine and Society

Jonathan Nossiter is an American who grew up in France, England, Italy, Greece and India. He has studied art in Paris and worked with theater in England. He has made a number of short and feature films. He also has backgrounds like that

wine connoisseurs from Paris and New York restaurants. For him, wine and wine production don't just work as one reflection on a civilization, but as the very thing civilization (with capital “s”): Everywhere in the world, wine, in its innumerable varieties, is what best reflects man. It unites the Greco-Roman and the Christian-Jewish tradition, preserves it, or better: extends it, as living, vital and relevant. The wine is therefore a unique preserver of Western culture. ”

How the wine is produced is therefore not indifferent. Especially in countries with long traditions in the area, this arouses strong emotions. The traditions for how the work is to be done are still alive. The work in the vineyards, in the production premises and in the storage cellars connects both people and the end product to a specific geographical area. You should be able to taste where the wine comes from. It must bring forward the uniqueness of the earth and the climate. In new wine countries, the starting point is completely different: the goal is a wine with certain properties in terms of color, taste and smell. Then the production is adapted to the desired goals, with the – if necessary chemical – means that are needed. "The wine has lost its individuality," says Michael Broadbent, Christies' wine manager. There he has been

winemaker since 1966. He believes he has registered a negative development. "I have democratized the wine," says Robert Parker in the film. There are two attitudes to life that collide, one artisanal, individualistic and one industrial and market-oriented. Put bluntly, it can be said that for Broadbent the wine (with its local character) is always right, for Parker it is the customer who is always right. Lately

In this case, the result will easily be standardized products with what some would call superficial taste because as many consumers as possible will be satisfied at once. Symptomatic in this respect is the use of new oak barrels for storing the wine. Not least the wine consultant Michel Rolland has been a driving force for the use of new barrels also in areas where this has not been used before. The result is that all wine gets a taste of vanilla. Round at the edges, full-bodied, slightly sweet, with a deep red color – if this becomes the quality goals for all wine, then where does the diversity and individuality go?

Those who say no

The film eventually takes us to a village in the Languedoc that refused to sell its vineyards to the Mondavi family, despite the fact that such a sale could undoubtedly have generated large revenues in the municipal coffers. We hear the discussion about the good and bad sides of globalization between a former and the current mayor of the municipality – and the Mondavi family's indignation that the French do not understand their own best interests. Aimé Guibert, a winegrower in the municipality, aims for a view that must be fundamentally incomprehensible to the Mondavi family: “Creating a good wine is like composing. It creates an almost religious relationship between man, the earth and the climate. ” At the same time, he seizes the opportunity to address the "fascist power of the chains," adding that the French have never agreed to be oppressed: "We have already guillotined one king to be free."

No less poetic is the now half-retired winemaker Hubert de Montille in Burgundy: "Wine civilization has always been characterized by the absence of barbarism."

That is why we are facing "a cultural battle, a battle between local quality products and globalized brands". Nor is he particularly pleased with the impatience of modern men. Good wine must mature for a long time. Hubert de Montille's daughter, Alix, will now take over the farm, and wants to produce wines that reflect herself: "A little sharp at the edges."

Basic conflicts

Then turn Mondovino first and foremost about the struggle for artisanal production of wine in an industrialized world? If so, the film would hardly have attracted so much attention. The reason why a nearly three-hour documentary has managed to fill the cinemas, and now gets its sequel as a television series, is that the film touches on issues that affect very many others in today's world. It takes up fundamental lines of conflict that may be changing more than ever before. Today we are experiencing a new industrial revolution that in its utmost consequence (the combination of genetic technology and computer technology) is shattering our entire worldview. On a daily basis, we experience this as increasing insecurity both on the practical and on the mental level. About the pure market thinking we encounter with American wineries Mondovino, constitutes a circadian fly or a lasting change factor in this picture, is not easy to say. Regardless, we perceive market thinking as an amplifier of uncertainty, both because it makes our economic and material future uncertain, but also because it involves a total relativization of all values ​​(everything that can be sold is good, and vice versa). The standardization of the taste that is being cultivated in the new wine countries, we can find parallels to in many areas of society. In this way, grabs Mondovino right into the discussion about the WTO negotiations and the EU Constitution. With wine farmers such as Aimé Guibert and Hubert de Montille, we find many of the attitudes that led to the no-win in the French referendum in May.

Jonathan Nossiter draws in bright colors Mondovino. It's almost as difficult not to be charmed by Neal Rosenthal or Battista Columbu as it is to be charmed by Robert Parker or Tim Mondavi. Nossiter accuses "modern" wine of being overly clear in taste and color using dubious production methods. The same argument can be used against his own film. Several nuances had given the film more credibility. But you search the internet for Mondovino, there is no doubt that Jonathan Nossiter has achieved what he wanted: to create debate. He obviously believes – like Alexander Kielland – that problems are best when they are put at the forefront.

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