Mondovino (2004)

Director:

Jonathan Nossiter

Writer:

Jonathan Nossiter (writer)

Release Date:

3 November 2004 (Belgium)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot:

A documentary on the impact of globalization on the world's different wine regions.

Plot Keywords:

Wine | Globalization | Wine Making | Vineyard | Agriculture

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Albiera Antinori	...	Herself
Allegra Antinori	...	Herself
Lodovico Antinori	...	Himself
Piero Antinori	...	Himself
Isanette Bianchetti	...	Herself
Jean-Charles Boisset	...	Himself
Marchioness Bona	...	Herself
Michael Broadbent	...	Himself
Antonio Cabezas	...	Himself
Battista Columbu	...	Herself
Lina Columbu	...	Herself
Xavier de Eizaguirre	...	Himself
Alix de Montille	...	Herself
Etienne de Montille	...	Himself
Hubert de Montille	...	Himself
Arnaldo Etchart	...	Himself (grandfather)
Marco Etchart	...	Himself
Salvatore Ferragamo	...	Himself
Marquis Dino Frescobaldi	...	Himself
Aime Guibert	...	Himself
Bill Harlan	...	Himself
Yvonne Hegoburu	...	Herself
Patrick Léon	...	Himself
Bernard Magrez	...	Himself
Margrit Mondavi	...	Herself
Michael Mondavi	...	Himself
Robert Mondavi	...	Himself
Tim Mondavi	...	Himself
Jonathan Nossiter	...	Himself
Robert Parker	...	Himself
Michel Rolland	...	Himself
Neal Rosenthal	...	Himself
James Suckling	...	Himself
Inaldo Tedesco	...	Himself
Jean-Luc Thunevin	...	Himself
Massimo Vinci	...	Himself
Patrizia Vinci	...	Herself
Marquis Vittorio	...	Himself

Directed by
Jonathan Nossiter

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Jonathan Nossiter		writer

Produced by
Emmanuel Giraud	....	producer
Catherine Hannoun	....	executive producer
Jonathan Nossiter	....	producer
Juan Pittaluga	....	associate producer
Ricardo Preve	....	co-producer
Michel Saint-Jean	....	co-producer
Tommaso Vergallo	....	associate producer

Cinematography by
Jonathan Nossiter

Film Editing by
Jonathan Nossiter

Production Management
François Drouot	....	production manager
Rodolphe Risse	....	post-production supervisor

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Laurent Gorse	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Nostradine Benguezzou	....	sound
Juan Pittaluga	....	sound

Camera and Electrical Department
Juan Pittaluga	....	additional camera operator
Stephanie Pommez	....	assistant camera
Stephanie Pommez	....	co-camera operator

Editorial Department
Serge Anthony	....	color timer
Angelo Cosimano	....	post-production
François Dupuy	....	post-production
Juan Eveno	....	post-production
Madeleine Gavin	....	consultant: editing
Gustavo Pizzi	....	post-production
Toby Ridgway	....	post-production

Other crew
Guillaume Lips	....	digital grader
Gustavo Pizzi	....	pre-production assistant
Marie Sonne-Jensen	....	production assistant

Thanks
Karim Ainouz	....	special thanks
Oren Moverman	....	special thanks
Ira Sachs	....	special thanks

Production Companies

• Diaphana Films (co-production)
• Goatworks Films
• Les Films de la Croisade
• Ricardo Preve Films (co-production)

Distributors

• 791 Cine (2006) (Argentina) (theatrical)
• Cinequanon (2005) (Japan) (theatrical)
• Diaphana Films (France) (theatrical)
• RCV Film Distribution (2004) (Netherlands) (theatrical)
• THINKFilm (2005) (USA) (theatrical)
• BIM Distribuzione (2005) (Italy) (all media)
• EuroVideo (2005) (Germany) (DVD)
• Four Films (2007) (Chile) (DVD)
• Sagrera TV (2006) (Spain) (all media)

Also Known As:

Mondovino (Argentina)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for brief pin-up nudity.

Runtime:

135 min | France:159 min

Country:

Argentina | France | Italy | USA

Language:

English | French | Italian | Spanish | Portuguese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

Spain:T | Argentina:Atp | UK:PG | Switzerland:7 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:7 (canton of Vaud) | USA:PG-13 | Australia:PG | Netherlands:AL | Sweden:Btl | Brazil:Livre

Company:

Diaphana Films

Goofs:

Errors in geography: During the shots showing the rail trip to Baltimore to visit wine critic Robert Parker, the word "Delaware" is superimposed, but the "PATH" logo is clearly visible on the passing building, which places the building in New Jersey. PATH is a commuter railroad operated between New Jersey and Manhattan by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and it has no facilities in Delaware.

Dry, but fruity, and long on the palate

Mondovino is an extraordinary documentary. It's self-indulgent, quirky, opinionated and overlong, but it's likely to be indespensible, because it's a devastating anatomy of the growing conflict between authentic local production (the French key word is "terroir") and the globalization of wine by which family origins are forgotten and the emphasis is on quick satisfaction, forward flavor, and standardized tastes.

The maker of this film is Jonathan Nossiter, polyglot, sommelier, happy tippler, photographer, director, and star interviewer in his documentary film – which began as a quickie, but wound up taking four years to make. Nossiter appears as fluent in Italian as he is in French, and perhaps in Spanish and Portuguese too. He's often on screen, addressing everyone in their native language, but it's his camera that's obsessed with sometimes annoying details, above all dogs.

Never mind, though; he manages to get everybody to open up to him, including many of the leading "players" of the international wine market, including those who come off the worst in Nossiter's documentary. And even those dogs turn out to have meaning. Isn't one's dog the clearest metaphor for a person's true nature?

It's obvious Nossiter likes Battista Columbu in Sardinia and Hubert de Montille in Volnay best – and it's obvious why. They're different sorts of men: Columbu is radiant and serene, de Montille querulous and acerbic. But they stand equally for what may be a vanishing world -- one where wine-making is authentic, personal, local, humane, where it's identified with place of origin not brand, done for pride of craft not profit, or – what the Michel Rollands and Mondavis want – for worldwide, nay, universe-wide market domination. Both dream openly on camera of making wine on other planets and of selling it to everyone.

De Montille comes across as mattering more than the Mondavis or any of the other aristos and plutocrats. He has only a few hectares. He makes wine that's severe, edgy, not for everyone – like himself -- and long-lasting. He's true to himself. A big focus of Mondovino is how the California Mondavis – who've already collaborated with overblown first growth bordeaux Mouton Rothchild to produce a pricey California hybrid, Opus One, since the Eighties -- recently tried to get hold of a big slice of burgundy. But a communist mayor took over the town from a socialist one and the sweetheart deal was off.

The Wine Spectator becomes, as Nossiter shows, one of the manipulators, and manipulation is an essential aspect of globalization. So too is Robert Parker, of Monkton, Maryland (who gets interviewed and his flatulent bulldogs thoroughly photographed). Parker has always been independent, but his wine ratings (and his taste) have come to wield too much power over the world wine market. French wine-makers are terrified of him, and that situation has undermined their independence. Parker, it turns out, has long been very friendly with Michel Rolland, a super-star French wine consultant (whose Mercedes limo we get to ride around in), and it turns out that the kind of heady, forward, fast-developing wine Parker likes is also what Rolland encourages wine-makers to produce – and globalization means not only eliminating small producers but homogenizing wine styles. Hence Rolland's ebullient charm is suspect, but so are Parker's so-called authenticity and independence.

The richness of Nossiter's picture comes out in the way he delineates wine families and their different, sometimes squabbling, members – most of all the de Montilles, the stubborn, feisty and wise old Hubert; his energetic son Etienne, who works for the powerful negociant, Boisset; and his daughter, Alix, in personality closer to Hubert, who decided to leave Boisset because they want her to lie -- to put her seal on wines she hasn't supervised the making of.

Nossiter's eye and ear can be devastating. The rich Staglin family in Napa Valley emerges as self-congratulatory and self-deceiving nouveaux bores. Their and other ruling wine families' condescension, outright racism, and covert or past links with the fascists and even the Nazis is another of the persistent filmmaker's gradual revelations. As one Nossiter interviewer has said, "don't get him on the subject of Berlusconi and Bush"; but Berlusconi is just fine with the wealthy Italian wine-making families.

Another sympathetic dissenter to the globalizing bandwagon is New York wine importer Neal Rosenthal, who knows the importance of terroir and the inroads against it. Rosenthal was present as a speaker after two of Film Forum's afternoon showings of Mondovino -- a local hero, of sorts, for the documentary's US premiere.

It's hard to do justice to the film or even list its full roster of figures. Michael Broadbent, longtime Wine Director at Christie's, a dry, aristocratic Englishman, once a leading authority and wine tastemaker, now eclipsed, as all are, by Parker, appears on screen to fill in the central role the English played in the growth of France's finest wines. Bernard Magrez, head of a huge Bordeaux dealership; the Antinoris of Florence (aristocrats with fascist lineage). . .the list goes on and on. One doesn't want to stop, and one sees why Nossiter's film is too long. Because it's all there in the details: this is what the controversy is about. Little things matter. Mondovino is annoying (the jumpy camera, the dog farts), but also riveting and important – a film not to be missed. And for the truly interested, there is a ten-part TV series from this material on the way.