By Rick Riozza
Hey! Once again we vino literati get to dream out loud with our favorite film and wine pairing schemes as we join in the glam and glitz of the 26th Annual P.S. International Film Festival.
With over 190 films from over 65 countries during the next 12 days, this desert’s world-famed event is further enhanced when we open up our imagined international wine-bar—which, as you’ll notice is fully stocked with any conceivable wine you may wish to enjoy. (Film notes quoted herein are provided by psfilmfest.org.)
Actually, since we’ve been doing these film & wine pairing articles, it appears more and more movie houses have been increasing their business by transforming their snack bar to an open bar. And we’ll put up with those clear plastic cups as long as the good vino continues to pour.
As we like to say, the Arts mix well: the art of film, the art of wine—it’s a natural. And you readers already know, as with food & wine pairings where one teams the different combinations of flavors, densities, touch, and nuance of the meal to the flavor points and counterpoints of a designated wine, movies offer us the same if not a broader matrix of jump-off points: Film origins, story lines, titles, geography and even character names can imaginatively take us to a myriad of wines around the world.
In some years, this film fest offered movie with titles like “Cooking History” and “Mediterranean Food” that screamed out for wine and dispensed easy pairings on a silver screen platter. And some years, movie titles were more quipping and less descriptive—but no matter, subject material abounds! Indeed! this may well be my last picture show wine pairing article because you readers can now do this in your sleep—enough with my tongue-in-cheek antics!
The easiest of pairings of course, are the films, “The Duke of Burgundy” and “Excuse My French”, where probably a glass of wine is de rigueur upon entrance into the theatre! The original home to our favorite red Pinot Noir and white Chardonnay, “La Borgogne” or “Burgundy”, as we call it, is the “Queen” of all wines—if you will, because of all the power, class, nuances, fragrance, and range that these fantastic reds & whites bring to our earthly domain.
On the other hand, arguably, is Bordeaux, the “King” of the wine world. Its red, white, and sweet wines have reached to the ends of the world with Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Malbec, Carménère, Sauvignon Blanc, and Sémillion. No excuses here, Bordeaux is a blend of all these.
Notes from “the Duke of Burgundy”: “…a sly, wry, but surprising tender account of a perverse lesbian SM relationship, played in the style of decadent Euro-porn of the 70s…it’s a thinking woman’s 50 Shades of Grey.” Two famous wine areas in Burgundy, Volnay and Pommard, sit as boundary neighbors. The ruddy terroir of Pommard makes for a “sauvage” of a red wine—dark, heavy, and tannic. Volnay, on the other hand, makes for some of the lightest reds, soft textured but very fragrant, ethereal, pale but with great personality with a long perfumed aftertaste. Forget the glass, let’s take the whole bottle of Volnay in.
In the film “Cowboys”, “A nifty blend of social drama and absurdist comedy about a bunch of small town no-hopers who stage an American Western as a musical.” It’s from Croatia and we’re told “just hearing the name Johnny Nebraska with a Croatian accent is pretty entertaining.”
If there was any one wine that made it out successfully from hooch, bad whiskey and rye in the 1800s, it’s California’s own dead bolt red Zinfandel. It was one of the most durable vines planted in Northern California and surrounds and kept the real cowboys quenched and nourished during the rough and tumble Gold Rush Days.
We still hear about those “ancient old vine” Zins that continue to be the rage with all “zinners” looking for those boot-strapping black, blue, and huckleberry flavors melding with prunes, tobacco, black pepper, leather, hay, molasses notes. Hey! Pardner! Now that’s some cowboy swill there!
Adding more persuasive reasoning to our complement is the fact that according to the findings at UC Davis along with the life-long determination of famed Napa Valley winemaker, Miljenko “Mike” Grgich (part-time La Quinta resident), we come to find that the Zin vine originated in Mikes native-homeland of Croatia.
And please, when walking into the US Premiere of the Indian film, “Margarita, With A Straw”, dump the wine list and be sucking on a very tangy-sweet Cazadores blanco cocktail.
So many movies, so little time—but so much wine!
Finally, we must pay homage to one of the icons of American cinema. Part of that 70s new wave of directors in Hollywood that included Friedkin, de Palma, Scorcese, Coppola and the like, Peter Bogdanovich came on the scene with the 1971 The Last Picture Show, that bleak, gritty and authentic black & white film depicting a wistful dying tumbleweed town with an ensemble cast for the ages.
Here in Palm Springs is the North American premiere of Bogdanovich’s “She’s Funny That Way”. “Whiplash fast and ferociously funny…it harks back to the Golden Age of Hollywood madcap comedy…”
One of the very few wines that can match the madcap intensity, artistry, and overall success of the art & wine genre, are those wines from Orin Swift. He dresses his bottles with the best images and fills them with the best grapes possible for wine, like Palermo, Mannequin, Papillon, Machete, etc.
See you at the movies! Cheers!
