Mondovino

It's been quite the year for wine in film. Everyone is of course well aware of the critical sccess of Sideways and the impact it's had on California's wine country. Well, now comes Mondovino. A documentary on the global wine industry. MSNBC has a review calling it "‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ for the grape" which I think is a very apt description considering the buzz and controversy it's been causing in the wine world. I saw Mondovino at last years Toronto International Film Festival and loved it. Jonathan Nossiter is a trained sommelier who in Mondovino looks at wine from a global perspective. Like many other industrys, globalization is having a profound effect on the wine world and Nossiter goes to great lengths to illustrate its impact. The romantic notion of small independent wine makers is quickly evaporating.

Nossiter in his Q&A after the Toronto screening discussed how Mondovino was edited down from over 500 hours of footage to 135 minutes. The original Cannes screening was incomplete and a half hour longer as it was rushed in order to get it screened at the Cannes Film Festival. Nossiter will be using the additional footage for a ten-part, ten hour series of the film on DVD later this year. I look forward to sitting down with a good bottle of wine or two (it is 10 hours afterall!) and taking in more Mondovino.