Bottle Shock Night at Terroir, The Madras Wine Club

The third “official” event organized by the Chennai Wine Club, Terroir, was a well-balanced brew of great ingredients: a thoroughly enjoyable film about the grape titled Bottle Shock, some appropriate grape to keep the film company, and great company that stayed to chat about the grape, writes Parvathi Nayar.
Right: Members of Terroir watch the film, Bottle Shock

On the evening of July 24th 2009, 20 members of Terroir gathered at the Screening Room of the Park Hotel, some reaching by the appointed hour of 6pm, others making impassioned telephone calls about “traffic snarl-ups”. So the evening started fashionably late but as the movie itself – picked by Terroir’s Mukund Padmanabhan – was an unqualified success, there were few actual complaints.
Creating – shock – waves of appreciation at Sundance, Bottle Shock directed by Randall Miller is based on a real event of great importance in the history of wine: the so-called Judgment of Paris, a wine tasting event in 1976, in which French and Californian wines faced off in a blind tasting.
The always-enjoyable Alan Rickman plays Steven Spurrier, a Brit wine merchant in Paris who is a snob about the superiority of French wine. He gets involved in setting up the blind wine tasting, which forces him to visit the barbarians of Napa Valley. But it’s his nose that’s in for something of a shock – no longer can it be held disdainfully up in the air when faced with the luxuriant aromas of Napa’s perfect chardonnays. The Napa end of things is brought to life by the conflicts between Barrett senior (Bill Pullman) and junior (Chris Pine) about how to lead one’s life, and run a profitable business by making the best possible wine.
“I admittedly felt proud and patriotic when the American wines won against all odds!” says Ragini Gupta, Acting Public Affairs Officer, U.S. Consulate General, Chennai of the film. She adds: “This wine club event was especially enjoyable because