IMDb plot summary: The story of the early days of California wine making featuring the now infamous, blind Paris wine tasting of 1976 that has come to be known as "Judgment of Paris".
Directed by Randall Miller. Starring Chris Pine, Alan Rickman, and Bill Pullman.
Bottle Shock tells the true story of a wine competition in France that invited California wines, which were seen as obviously inferior, to compete alongside French wines in a blind tasting. Alan Rickman plays the man coordinating the whole thing, who is pleased to find some wine of value in the vineyards of Napa and Sonoma, and we see him interacting with one vintner family in particular who are struggling to make ends meet. This is a sweet little underdog story that often relies too heavily on cheesy sentimentality for me to recommend it to everyone, but the charm of the cast and the goodheartedness of the story are exactly what some people are looking for, and it delivers that. And even though if offers few surprises, if you let yourself lean into rooting for people, it's pretty enjoyable to watch, particularly as we see Chris Pine's character step up and pursue something he cares about. A decent but not-stellar watch that I would pretty much immediately forget if I didn't live in wine country myself and have a personal connection to the story.
How it entered my Flickchart:
Bottle Shock < The Harder They Fall
Bottle Shock > Monkey Business (1952)
Bottle Shock < The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
Bottle Shock > Saludos Amigos
Bottle Shock > Happy Christmas
Bottle Shock > Nashville
Bottle Shock > National Velvet
Bottle Shock > Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Bottle Shock > The Whole Nine Yards
Bottle Shock < Dark City
Bottle Shock > They Made Me a Fugitive
Final spot: #2213 out of 3534, or 37%.
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