Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Red, Red Wine

I finally got around to watching Sideways recently. I gotta say, overall, I didn't enjoy the movie. I'm not a big fan of movies where one character is a complete idiot, doing and saying ridiculous things, and manages with very little effort to convince some silly lackey to go along with every hare-brained (and sometimes even amoral) idea he has.

The most memorable line of the movie, of course, was "I'm not drinking any fucking merlot!" The guy was such a wine snob. Of course, that throwaway line appears to have had some consequences; I recently read in an article in the Washington Post that merlot sales suffered following the success of the movie.

At which point I thought about my own wine choices. I do generally like to order merlot at restaurants, just because I'm too lazy to really think about and weigh the merits of the various other reds out there. (Once, I told my table companions (within earshot of the waiter) that I liked merlots "just because I dig the silent 'T'." The waiter stifled a giggle, as did one of my companions.) Should I give it some more thought? I mean, I do like merlots...

But then I also sure as heck didn't want to find myself basing my wine choices on some stupid character in a movie. I'm an independent thinker, dammit, and the fact that some guy in some movie passionately hates merlot should not be a reason for me to abandon merlots in some anti-merlot conspiracy.

Then, however, I was invited to a dinner party where, as per my usual, I decided to take a bottle of wine. Looking through my (meager) wine collection -- consisting of four or five bottles, mostly from Whole Foods -- I came to realize that I didn't even have a bottle of merlot among them. They were, instead, two bottles of claret, a bottle of shiraz, a bottle of meritage (yummy!), and a bottle of pinot noir.

Turns out I had been gradually moving away from merlots even before I saw Sideways. Whew.

5 comments:

kat said...

I haven't had merlot in ages. I tend to favor shiraz/syrah and pinots (both noir and grigio/gris).

Jon said...

I HATED Sideways. So much. Grrrr- thinking about it makes me angry that I wasted roughly 2 hours of my life seeing it. Hisssss.

I'm all for wacky movies with wacky characters, like Rushmore or Royal Tenenbaums, even The Life Aquatic. Ok, so you know I like Wes Anderson films, but Sideways was about snivelling people who whined, but then didn't do ANYTHING to fix their lives. And stealing from your own mother, that's the lowest of the low. Grrrrr.

Modigliani said...

Haven't seen Sideways yet. But from what Jon had to say about it, it looks like I'm not missing much! I hate whiney spoiled brats, too!

My choices on wine are Spanish Riojas for reds and French Vouvray for white! Mmmmm, yummy!

p.p. said...

Kat, you and I have the EXACT taste in wine!

I also like semi-sweet wines.

kat said...

oooo... good call modigli, spanish riojas are yummy!

peter, ever try any white burgundys? they're semi-sweet, and very tasty.