How an award-winning Hollywood road movie managed to change perceptions about two important grape varieties.
This week a whole
decade ago, Miles and Jack sauntered onto U.S. screens for the first
time, and set about changing our perception of wine movies and – perhaps
more importantly – the way we felt about Merlot.
Sideways follows the pair through a week in Santa Barbara wine country, ostensibly Jack’s last fling before he weds. Really, it turns into a chance for Miles, a failed writer, to wallow in drunken self pity and be the kind of know-it-all wine snob we all know we are deep inside.
The film was a critical and commercial success, netting director
Alexander Payne an Academy Award for best Adapted Screenplay and a
nomination for Best Picture. To many wine insiders’ surprise, it also
had a profound influence on wine-buying patterns across the world.
The film is, at its essence, a love letter to Pinot Noir. Miles makes an impassioned soliloquy for the grape when asked why he is "so into Pinot", and following the film’s release in late 2004, sales of Pinot Noir wines soared. U.S. wine companies were looking all over the world for opportunities to capitalize on this sudden interest in the variety.
But, despite a good 120 minutes of the film focusing on how wonderful Pinot Noir is, Sideways’ lasting legacy has been on Merlot – specifically Miles’ derision of the grape which gave us the film’s most quotable line: "If anybody orders Merlot, I’m leaving. I am not drinking any f****g Merlot!"
While there was a small decrease in Merlot sales in the U.S. following the film’s release, the line’s most lasting impact has been on the grape’s street cred. Drinkers are still quick to slag off the variety, replacing it in their public lives with Pinot while secretly quaffing the crowd-pleaser at home.
This reputation has carried over into Merlot’s popularity on the Wine Searcher database. Despite being the world’s second most-planted grape variety in 2010 (behind Cabernet Sauvignon), Merlot doesn’t even come close to rivalling Pinot Noir in popularity. So far this year, the database has seen four times as many searches for Pinot Noir wines as it has for those based on Merlot.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the most popular Merlot wine is Petrus: arguably the variety’s most famous expression and one with an average price on Wine-Searcher of $2845. Overall it is the third most-searched for wine on the site.
Pinot Noir, on the other hand, blows Merlot out of the water in terms of average price. The top Pinot Noir wine is Romanée-Conti, which has an average Wine Searcher price of $13,116. Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, affectionately known as DRC, is well-represented in the list: six of the top ten most-searched for Pinot Noirs are from this illustrious Burgundy estate, all of them grand crus. Miles name-checks one of these – the Richebourg – during the film.
Ironically, Miles’ pride and joy is a bottle of 1961 Cheval Blanc which includes, of course, a hefty chunk of Merlot (Cabernet Franc makes up the other component – another variety Miles turns his nose up at in the film). One can’t help but wonder if this entirely deliberate "goof" is a middle finger to the most pompous of wine snobs, something that Miles most emphatically is.
The film’s brief message about Merlot – more of a punchline than anything else – has probably helped win advocates for the variety, while weeding out the slaves to fashion. Ten years on, the Merlot name appears on fewer $15 bottles than before, but graces more $50 bottles, never mind how many people are searching for it on Wine Searcher.
Unfortunately, the opposite is probably true for Pinot Noir – be careful what you wish for.
Sideways follows the pair through a week in Santa Barbara wine country, ostensibly Jack’s last fling before he weds. Really, it turns into a chance for Miles, a failed writer, to wallow in drunken self pity and be the kind of know-it-all wine snob we all know we are deep inside.
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The film is, at its essence, a love letter to Pinot Noir. Miles makes an impassioned soliloquy for the grape when asked why he is "so into Pinot", and following the film’s release in late 2004, sales of Pinot Noir wines soared. U.S. wine companies were looking all over the world for opportunities to capitalize on this sudden interest in the variety.
But, despite a good 120 minutes of the film focusing on how wonderful Pinot Noir is, Sideways’ lasting legacy has been on Merlot – specifically Miles’ derision of the grape which gave us the film’s most quotable line: "If anybody orders Merlot, I’m leaving. I am not drinking any f****g Merlot!"
While there was a small decrease in Merlot sales in the U.S. following the film’s release, the line’s most lasting impact has been on the grape’s street cred. Drinkers are still quick to slag off the variety, replacing it in their public lives with Pinot while secretly quaffing the crowd-pleaser at home.
This reputation has carried over into Merlot’s popularity on the Wine Searcher database. Despite being the world’s second most-planted grape variety in 2010 (behind Cabernet Sauvignon), Merlot doesn’t even come close to rivalling Pinot Noir in popularity. So far this year, the database has seen four times as many searches for Pinot Noir wines as it has for those based on Merlot.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the most popular Merlot wine is Petrus: arguably the variety’s most famous expression and one with an average price on Wine-Searcher of $2845. Overall it is the third most-searched for wine on the site.
Pinot Noir, on the other hand, blows Merlot out of the water in terms of average price. The top Pinot Noir wine is Romanée-Conti, which has an average Wine Searcher price of $13,116. Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, affectionately known as DRC, is well-represented in the list: six of the top ten most-searched for Pinot Noirs are from this illustrious Burgundy estate, all of them grand crus. Miles name-checks one of these – the Richebourg – during the film.
Ironically, Miles’ pride and joy is a bottle of 1961 Cheval Blanc which includes, of course, a hefty chunk of Merlot (Cabernet Franc makes up the other component – another variety Miles turns his nose up at in the film). One can’t help but wonder if this entirely deliberate "goof" is a middle finger to the most pompous of wine snobs, something that Miles most emphatically is.
The film’s brief message about Merlot – more of a punchline than anything else – has probably helped win advocates for the variety, while weeding out the slaves to fashion. Ten years on, the Merlot name appears on fewer $15 bottles than before, but graces more $50 bottles, never mind how many people are searching for it on Wine Searcher.
Unfortunately, the opposite is probably true for Pinot Noir – be careful what you wish for.
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