Merlot in Sideways

Miles is an exageration of an insecure wine-snob assh*le.

I think the movie might have elevated Pinot Noir to a similar kind of mass-appeal as Merlot has enjoyed for quite some time, but it's just a movie, and it's not about wine.

Hint: Jack is as messed-up as Miles is.

Dana

Merlot is increasingly joining the chardonnay bracket as "Anything but that". So its becoming untrendy. When someone tells me they only drink merlot I remind myself never to get trapped on a desert island with them.

Merlot traditionally has been a bit of a safe wine. Goes with most things. Is fairly innocuous, and is often said to be the white drinkers red or the everyman red because most ppl will like it, even non-red drinkers [and beer drinkers too I've noticed]. Which is not strictly true, very early on both myself and my father got put off merlot.

Here in Australia, and we had a bit of a broo-ha-ha in this group a little while ago about merlot being over-sweet, thin crap, it is usually over sweet, thin crap, lacking any length, intensity or character.

However, I have been somewhat converted by a Mr Andrew Goldfinch and his lovely partner Jodie. At their tasty dinner they were nice enough to invite us to, he cracked a Leconfield Coonawarra 2002 Merlot.

It was a pretty big wine. It had been decanted which helped a lot. If I remember correctly it was a huge, thick wine, with a lovely mouth feel, a long finish with the occaisional hint of pepper. I didn't take notes and we drank another wine at the same time so I can't be more precise, I may even be mixing the two up [they were both excellent, Charles Melton Nine Popes 2001] but I do recall thinking it couldn't be a merlot. Both myself and the other half who doesn't usually like red wine, enjoyed it immensely. I believe its scored high 90s in a number of tastings by various Oz wine big wigs. Very very nice.

So in conclusion I think merlot is increasingly passe, and being that it is fairly easy to make so everyone makes it, and a lot of bad examples are around, a lot of ppl get put off it.

All true.

Also Miles also had pschological problems with his ex-wife and another Merlot, Cheval Blanc, both of which seemd to be stopping him from moving on. Maybe I am reading too much into the script, but that may also have been a factor.

Sideways is also based on an unpublished novel by wine geek Rex Pickett. Miles' taste in large part mirror's Pickett's own, as he says in this interview on Fresh Air with Terry Gross:

More like because it _possessed_ mass appeal, I gather

"Dana H. Myers" in news: snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com...

Yes. In the US, Merlot as a varietal label was fairly unknown (except to wine geeks) until some serious labels and new publicity circa 1981 (I still have copies of Harvey Steiman's November 1981 article "Merlot: The Coming Red Revolution," which overnight stripped retail shelves of premium Merlots, in my region).

Just as Chardonnay was relatively unknown as a varietal label (except to wine geeks) in days when people in the US would more likely have heard of French Chardonnays (labeled in the customary geographical naming, not as "Chardonnay").

In recent years we have indeed seen "Anything But Chardonnay" (ABC) sections on restaurant wine lists and apparently we can expect "Anything But Merlot" (ABM) sections now too.

Pinot Noir is apparently a discovery to some people (but not to wine geeks).

Touché.

Not unpublished since April '04:

Cheval Blanc, like most St-Emilions, is a mix of Cab Franc and Merlot (typically about 50/50). Of course, since Miles disses Cab Franc too, the point still stands.

Mark Lipton

Cheval Blanc is coming from Saint Emilion and then isn't a pure Merlot. It's using Cabernet franc (i don't know the english word) and Merlot...

I sort-of knew that, but thought Ceval Blanc had an unusually high Merlot content. On checking though iI had remembered the wrong way round; it is 60% Cab Franc.

Steve Slatcher wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

But the irony stands due to the cab franc bashing as well.

Has anyone tasted a cab Franc out of CA? Are they as bad as the movie makes them out to be. I am a big fan of Loire valley products but the only encounter with anyone with US knowledge assured me that Cab Franc by itself was "undrinkable" and harsh- does not sound like a Bourgeuill to me.

""Une bévue"" in news:1gw9gjx.155gd8pxvnja2N% snipped-for-privacy@NONfree.fr...

Would a small translation table be helpful? :-)

French: / English:

Cabernet Franc / Cabernet Franc

Pinot Noir / Pinot Noir

Sauté / Sauté

et cetera / et cetera

It's not so different, is it? (For some useful old words like bâtard and hôpital, English keeps the old "S" implied by the circumflex.)

Hi Max --

Far be it from me to inerject but possibly the word that the OP was searching for might be 'blended' or some variation thereof....

Mike P

I disagree. I think he is looking for the word "giftwrapped". Either that or the word meaning "lightly dipped in beeswax before being flung at a ibis".

Actually, reading back, I disagree with myself - in that I am both wrong.

fine, i like those kind of translations...

blended seems to stand for "assemblage" (french)

i wonder if u have a way, in english, to make the difference between year-blended wines, vineplants blended wines and both kind of ?

David Coffaro makes a nice example. Most of his reds are blends, and his Cab Franc is (I think) no exception, but I don't have the bottle handy. Dave is in the Dry Creek area, and his wines are usually very fruit-forward and typically low-tannin; drinkable from the get-go. I've had the pleasure of tasting his 4-month old barrel samples, and I was amazed at how approachable they were.

I take any generalization like your friend produced with a grain of salt - there are talented people in every wine-producing area doing marvelous things with almost any grape they can get their hands on; the fun is finding them!

Regards, Dean

Wait a minute! "Et cetera" is neither French nor English; it's _Latin_!

Don't you just hate to hear people pronounce it "ek-setera"? >:^[ Not that this has anything to do with wine...

Tom S

Although that sounds right to me, I believe that an assemblage does not necessarily consist of a mixture of varietals. It may be a mixture of lots from several cuvées of the same varietal - perhaps from different lots from within the same vineyard.

Among American wines, the tipoff to a wine blended across vintages is the lack of a vintage date on the label. To be vintage dated, an American wine currently must be at least 95% from the vintage on the label. There is an effort under way by some producers to relax that requirement to 85% if I'm not mistaken, but right now it's 95%.

Tom S

in France this is true also but blended vintages exists only within Champagne. I don't know if a champagne with a given vintage (millésimé in french) as a requirement below 100 % or not, i'd believe 100 % of a given vintage.

Ah, but Tom, it IS French... and Latin of course...

or people that say "nucular", event those with the finger of the button ! Again OT...

Mike Tommasi, Six Fours, France email link