Bottle Shock (2008) on Netflix
Steven Spurrier's Paris wine shop has few customers, so he plans a blind tasting of California wines against French ones. In Napa Valley, Jim Barrett's son Bo wants Chateau Montelena entered.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb6.8/1019,417 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes48%
Trailer
Plot summary
Steven Spurrier runs an exclusive wine shop and tasting school in Paris, where his few customers see him as an outsider rather than a French expert. His friend and regular customer Maurice Cantavale tells him he must show the French that good wine comes from elsewhere too, and Spurrier settles on a blind tasting that will set California bottles against French ones. In Napa Valley, Jim Barrett left a law career to found Chateau Montelena, which is running out of money. His son Bo works the vineyard with his best friend Gustavo Brambila, who has the knowledge of a second-generation grower but no land of his own, and the intern Sam Fulton arrives to join them. Jim distrusts Spurrier's contest, while Bo sees in it a chance for Chateau Montelena's Chardonnay to be noticed.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Bottle Shock (2008)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The real Steven Spurrier, the wine merchant the film is built around, publicly disputed its accuracy while he was involved in a rival project about the same event, saying there was hardly a word in the script that was true.
- Thirty years after the original 1976 blind tasting where California wine beat France, Steven Spurrier hosted a rematch in 2006 fully expecting the French wines to win this time, but California won again.
- The movie never depicts Mike Grgich, the winemaker behind the 1973 Montelena Chardonnay that won in Paris, although he worked closely with Gustavo Brambila at Chateau Montelena.
- The film shows vineyard foreman Gustavo Brambila working at Chateau Montelena throughout the run-up to the 1976 Judgment of Paris tasting, but in reality his 22-year tenure there only began after the tasting had already happened.
