Film Review:
Mondovino
by Jan Aaron

In this one size fits all world, filmmaker Jonathan Nossiter, worries wine that will no longer be custom-made. He expands on his point-of-view in his rambling (135-minute) but always fascinating film Mondovino, opened March 23 at the Film Forum
in New York, and nationwide in April. "We hope to have special screenings for food and wine lovers," he says, during our interview at his funky fourth floor flat on Prince Street in New York City. "Readers should watch for them in newspaper ads," he adds.

A filmmaker, who is also a sommelier, Nossiter has known wines all his life (his Mom put wine in his bottle) also knows the wine business today. He hates the hype that turns wines into expressions
of power and prestige and grinned when I said this magazine is not into either.

Nossiter's film looks beyond the pleasures of wine drinking. Roaming three continents from America, Europe, and South America, he holds up the current state of the wine industry as a mirror of cultural change, vanishing traditions,
and diminishing independent thought. "We discovered a delicious variety of human beings who could populate a Dickens' novel, all with wonderful stories to tell," he explains. "Even if I didn't agree them, I tried to be sympathetic."

For instance, the film explains that the powerful Mondovino (see name of film) family having made its wine popular in America is now is doing the same in the old world
by introducing its production methods there and indeed around the world. The "terroir" (taste of the land), Nossiter says is being mixed with modern technology to make wines immediately drinkable. "This misses the point about wine," he adds.

His film includes consultant Michel Rolland who works throughout the world transforming wines to international taste, and powerful wine critics Robert Parker and James Suckling. Wine importer/retailer Neal Rosenthal is here, too: "In Bordeaux,
the terroir is there, but they are destroying it," he says.

While Nossiter had unusual access to the wine world's movers and shakers, the little guys are the film's highlights and heroes. These include the feisty holdouts like Aime Guibert in Languedoc, France who staunchly resists the appropriation of his land and traditions by foreign companies and Yvonne Hegoburu, a 77-year-old widow in southwest France, who planted a few acres in the memory of her late husband. Battista and Lina Columbu in Sardinia, reflect on nature's supremacy and the price of progress. There are pioneers like the Isanette Bianchetti and Inaldo Tedesco, a husband and wife team, both oenologists, who helped establish the first vines ever planted in Northeastern Brazil. Nossiter's detailed people portraits also includes their pets -- a cat here, goldfish there, dogs wandering about or snoozing in the sun.

His film will awaken many wine lovers to the threats of creeping globalization, but he doesn't say what can be done about it. We can't turn back the clock, but how about some middle ground? Importer Rosenthal puts it this way: "It's not between modernity and tradition. Because you can be modern while respecting tradition."

Let's drink to that -- and to Mondovino for opening the door.

(Directing, photography, editing Jonathan Nossiter, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese)

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