BOTTLE SHOCK – The ‘Tribute to Alan Rickman’ Review

I HATE wine!  Seriously, no kidding, I cannot drink it, smell it and I don’t like to talk about it.  The origin of this distaste for fermented grape juice?  It was when I was in the Navy (there he goes again!) I was on liberty in Brindisi, Italy (Bill remembers!)  We were in a restaurant on a bright, sunny Italian Sunday afternoon.  We ordered food and wine.  The wine came in pitchers, not bottles.  I don’t recall the food ever arriving, don’t remember leaving the restaurant, going back to the ship, none of that, complete blackout.

Literally one minute in the restaurant, the next lying face down in my rack strangling on my own sick.  I won’t go into any more sordid details, I’ll spare you that.  Sufficient to note I was in trouble with the Navy, had gotten horribly sick on a liberty boat, paid the penalty by standing “the drunk watch” the next night, helping other hammered Navy personnel get off liberty boats and back to their racks.  And I swabbed up sick out of three liberty boats as penance for my misbehavior, a most appropriate punishment, as you can imagine.  Just an aside, an Italian bay is the best and most convenient place to rinse out a mop fouled with upchuck, very handy.

The result?  I said “never again” and I have stuck to that ever since, the mere smell of a glass of wine causes my intestines to curl up in knots and bile to rise in the back of my throat.  Not to mention my loathing of the “wine connoisseur!”

There is no more pretentious and snobbish drivel in human conversation than wine fans swirling some in a glass and smelling and sipping and gargling a “smoky little cabernet with just a hint of fresh peaches and Old Spice after shave and yack yack yack!”

The last word on that is the wonderful Roger Corman movie Tales of Terror, wherein one tale is a combination of Cask of Amontillado and The Black Cat.  If you are a true movie geek you’ve seen it, an already hammered Peter Lorre stumbles into a wine tasting where Vincent Price (at his most effete and foppish) is pronouncing the origin, year, province and what part of the vineyard different wines came from, just from a taste.  He takes elegant little sips from a silver cup, Lorre is his equal at wine knowledge but he chugs down entire glasses and never bothers to “swirl and sniff!”

I say all this as an introduction to a wonderful movie about…wine, and the tasting and judging of wine, as well as the growing of grapes, the fermentation, bottling, marketing and, well, all the nuts and bolts of the wine business.  And I wish to pay tribute to one of the recently departed, who appears in Bottle Shock, the always wonderful Alan Rickman.

Bottle Shock tells the true story of how California wines became popular all over the world, after a certain Napa Valley winery had its chardonnay win a blind taste test, in France, the world capital of wine snobbery.   It’s a true David and Goliath story, taking place in 1976, but it’s also a fish out of water tale.  In fact the prime mover in this story is out of place in two countries, this would be Steven Spurrier, played by Alan Rickman.  He runs a wine shop, in Paris, where of course, as an Englishman he is more than a little looked down upon.  His best friend is an Italian American wonderfully played by Dennis Farina, another fine actor taken from us much too soon.

It’s Farina’s character who gives Spurrier the idea to go looking for wine elsewhere in the world to compete with the French wines.  Which brings him to Napa Valley and meetings and tastings at several wineries, including Chateau Montelena, owned and operated by Jim Barrett (Bill Pullman) sometimes with the help of his “hippy” son Bo, played by Chris Pine.

Spurrier wants to take some of the local wines to France, including ones from Chateau Montelena, Jim Barrett wants no part of it and also doesn’t believe his son Bo will ever be capable of running the family wine business.  Long story short Bo and Spurrier make it to the biggest blind taste test in the world and, against all the odds, win in every category.  And Bo steps up and takes over the winery.  A wonderful making of feature includes the real people who inspired this story, Bo still runs the winery, with his Father’s help.

With Spurrier’s help not only did California wines become more popular, wine from Australia, Chile and several other countries found a niche in the world market.  Some great wine is produced in Missouri, (so I’m told) around the area where Meramec Caverns still lures in tourists.

Make no mistake, Bottle Shock is somewhat by the numbers.  If you know anything about wine you know how it ends.  This is the kind of low budget, independent movie I feel it is my duty to report on for We Are Movie Geeks.  This is one that fell through the cracks, I had never heard of it until I found it at one our local libraries.

Bottle Shock has a lot going for it, you can’t help but root for the Americans putting their product up against the best the French have to offer.  Pullman and Pine are quite good (the only problem I had with Bottle Shock is Chris Pine’s ridiculous “hippy” wig,) all the supporting players are good, especially Freddy Rodriquez as Bo’s best friend who wants to start his own winery.

But it’s Alan Rickman who really makes Bottle Shock something special.  Throughout the movie Rickman wears an expression as if he just discovered dog poo on the heel of his shoe.  His trip through the Napa Valley wine country is precious indeed, especially his encounter with a bucket of KFC!

Alan Rickman will probably always be remembered for his part in the Harry Potter series,( a franchise adored by everyone on Earth it seems, except me, for reasons I am not about to go into here.)  But Rickman made every part he ever accepted into something special.

Like most movie geeks I first knew of him in Die Hard, “Yippee kai yay mother…!”   And then in the Kevin Costner Robin Hood movie.  He brought an obvious intelligence, a great sense of humor, generosity to his fellow artists and a strong professional attitude to everything he did.

He worked just about constantly, Perfume, Love Actually, Sweeney Todd.

I’ll always remember him for Truly, Madly, Deeply, one of the best movies ever made about the changes we go through when we lose a loved one.  But my personal favorite of his films?  One of the most perfect films I can think of, Galaxy Quest!  A wicked satire and a loving tribute to one of the most iconic television shows ever produced, every actor in Galaxy Quest is at the top of their game.  I treasure moments from Tony Shalhoub “that was a hell of a thing!” Sam Rockwell “what’s my name?!?”  Sigourney Weaver “It’s a stupid job but I’m going to do it!”, Tim Allen “My ship is trailing mines!” and most especially Alan Rickman “By Grapthar’s Hammer…”

Like most of the great English actors Rickman came from the working class, his Father worked in a factory, his background was English, Irish and Welsh.   He brought a great deal to every project he worked on.  A better  tribute than mine was given by Kevin Smith on his Facebook page.  Rickman worked with Smith on Dogma, playing God himself.  I can’t think of a better actor to play the Supreme Being.  Alan Rickman will be sorely missed.  And Bottle Shock is as good a way to say goodbye as any I can think of.