Mondovino: The Phantoms of Progress

In preparation for my latest Diploma exam on the relationship between the wine media and the consumer, I watched Mondovino, a 2004 documentary I've been meaning to view for some time. Shot in a shaky vérité style with no narrative voiceover, it takes an arch look at the world of wine, the effects of globalisation, and the influence, often controversial, of major international figures such as Robert Parker, Robert Mondavi, and Michel Rolland, a French wine consultant. It's a fascinating film, lacing the differences and similarities between, in particular, French and Californian attitudes to wine. By allowing all the characters to speak for themselves, it exposes a lot of contradictions in the way the wine industry sees itself, not least that the predatory capitalist values the French (and, by association, the film) attack the Americans for are as French as wine itself.

the players

Michel Rolland

A charismatic, opinionated, and self-satisfied figure, Rolland is an in-demand wine consultant for many wineries, particularly in Bordeaux and the expensive and lucrative Pomerol appellation. As seen in the film, his role is to talk on his mobile in the back of his chauffeur-driven car, run into a winery and tell the perplexed owner to micro-oxygenate the wine, and run back to the car and repeat the advice in several other Bordeaux wineries. A friend of Robert Parker's, their tastes coincide and lead to accusations of collusion: wineries that Parker gives high scores to have had Rolland as consultant.

Boisset

The number one producer in Burgundy and the number two producer in France at the time with a €230m annual turnover. In 2009, Jean-Claude Boisset, the very confident head of the family company, married Gina Gallo, of the Californian Gallo dynasty. I doubt that made the company any more popular than they are in this film five years previously.

de Montille

Hubert de Montille is a canterkerous, and, dare I say it, very French individual: very certain of his take on life and aggressive with it - yet honestly so. He repeatedly makes the argument that the US wine industry is using its cultural and imperial might to impose its vision of wine on the world, without any irony whatsoever. His son Etienne, with an equally aggressive attitude and whom Montille seems to have little affection for, works for the family company. His daughter Alix, whom he sees as a reflection of himself and his values, works for Boisset. (Not mentioned on her profile on the family website.)

Robert Mondavi and family

Robert Mondavi, seen here just a few years before his death in 2008, was one of the most important yet divisive figures in the development of the Californian wine industry. The film focuses on the collaboration with Bordeaux's Mouton-Rothschild to create the ridiculously expensive Opus One winery in California, the failed attempts to set up a business in the Languedoc town of Aniane, and the partnerships established with some of the most famous Tuscan wineries, such as Frescobaldi.

Aimé Guibert

Of Daumas-Gassac, the most distinctive and prestigious of Languedoc wineries, who led the resistance to Mondavi's entry into the Languedoc scene. He opens the film lamenting the "death of wine" and is a sparky yet contradictory presence throughout the documentary: when Gérard Depardieu enters the Languedoc scene, he has no problem with this rich outsider - Depardieu is a big fan of Daumas-Gassac's wines and pleases Guibert by expressing that "the key is in the terroir."

California and the Mondavis are the not Guibert's only target

Michael Broadbent

The well-spoken, very English head of Christie's wine department makes the salient point that the wealth and standing of Bordeaux wine is due to the English aristocracy. He uses the example of Château Kirwan to demonstrate how outside influences still affect the price and reputation of Bordeaux wines: the winery was underperforming, Michel Rolland came along to make it in a more global style, and Robert Parker gave it 94 points. The owners of Château Kirwan maintain that their wines have evolved for themselves, not for Parker.

Alain Chatelet

Of the French government's "Competition, Consumption, and Anti-Fraud Agency," he maintains that French winemakers have altered wines to suit Parker's taste - "a school of production that includes illegal methods." The documentary doesn't attempt to investigate Chatelet's claims (I'm sure they do in the ten-hour version).

Neal Rosenthal 

A New York wine merchant, who has written a rather self-important book, Reflections of a Wine Merchant (2008), in which he talks about his ability to impress Burgundy winemakers with his knowledge of Burgundy terroir. He is seen in the film as the anti-Parker of American wine, talking about the "Napa-isation of wine" and "repressing the terroir"; his comments are echoed by de Montille, who claims that California winemakers are "hiding terroir with oak."

Frescobaldi

A Tuscan wine producer since the 1400s and, as the lineage indicates, owned by aristocracy: the female head of the line has the poshest English accent I have ever heard, indicative of a European aristocracy educated among and for themselves. Although Antinori, another aristocratic Tuscan family were "influenced by Mondavi," it was Frescobaldi who struck a deal with the Californian company - one third of Frescobaldi's production is in Mondavi ventures.

Ornellaia

One of the greatest of Tuscan wines, Frescobaldi now owns 50% and Mondavi 10-20%. James Suckling, Italian critic for the Wine Spectator who seems to intimate that he came up with the term Super Tuscan (he didn't, it was in a 1985 book by Nicholas Belfrage and Jancis Robinson) and says Berlusconi's doing a good job, states that the Italian government did nothing about this arrangement, but the French government would have. This I believe: the French government never passes up an opportunity to interfere. Michel Rolland was hired as consultant when the Mondavis got involved. A local wine merchant is interviewed about Ornellaia, arguing that when the wine was acquired by Mondavi, it was made the number one wine by Wine Spectator the very same year.

Robert Parker

Friend of Rolland, proponent of the style of wines Rolland consults his clients on; former lawyer who loves his two dogs; powerful critic since the 1980s, accused of an undue influence on producers who dream of gaining high scores from him; who says he brings the American perspective to an elitist industry, yet has made wine, particularly in Bordeaux, prohibitively expensive - and he admits he finds his effect on prices unnerving.

Robert Parker's bloodhound, Hoover

If this were a game of Cluedo, Parker would be the main suspect for the death of wine that Aimé Guibet laments at the beginning of the film. He's at the centre of every controversy: the development of Bordeaux (and Californian and Rhône) wine to suit an aggressive, high alcohol style, the relationship between media, producer, and consumer, and the price of fine wine. Parker defends himself quite well in the film, though not convincingly enough - he's aware of all the controversies surrounding his influence on the world of wine, but hasn't done anything to change the situation.

But the contradictions, mythologies, and exaggerations surrounding Parker mark him out as no different from anyone else in the film. There are a whole host of players guilty of contradictory opinions, self-serving justification, and uneasy pragmatism that demonstrates the world of wine is like the rest of the world: messy, confusing, and still trying to come to terms with how globalisation has changed the way business is conducted.