Movies For Wine Lovers

It’s finally getting cold in these parts. Time to get cozy and snuggle up with a glass of wine and a good movie! Maybe even a movie about wine! If you’re a lover of wine, chances are you’ll be drawn to, or at least intrigued by, movies that prominently feature wines. Fortunately, there are a large number of films which revolve around wine and wine tasting.

It is perhaps understandable that wine has become such an influential topic for movie makers, because there is something magical about wine — both in terms of the process of making it and the history of the vineyards and winemakers themselves.
One of the most noticeable things about movies revolving around wine is just how diverse they are — with some humorous, others romantic, and a few documentaries thrown into the mix as well. One thing they all have in common, however, is that they have wine at their core and it serves as the catalyst for some seminal movie moments that will you will remember long after you’ve polished off the final drop of your favorite tipple.
Here are a variety of other movies that will pair well with wine lovers everywhere.
1. Sideways (2004)
This comedy-drama follows a San Diego wine aficionado and his wayward soon-to-be-married friend on a trip through the beautiful Santa Ynez wine country. While Miles (Paul Giamatti) tries to show his friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church) that enjoying the food, wine and scenery can be some of life’s greatest pleasures, Jack is focused on having one last fling before his trip to the altar.

2. Bottle Shock (2008)
Based on true events, this film starring Alan Rickman depicts a 1976 taste test that pitted California wine against French wine, with results that shook the entire industry. This competition has come to be known as the “Judgment of Paris.”

3. Notorious (1946)
This classic Alfred Hitchcock film follows the troubled life of Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman), whose father is jailed for treason as a German spy. She turns to men and drink to soothe her pain but is shortly after recruited by the American government to spy on her father’s friends. The key to the mystery of the film is found in a bottle of 1934 Pommard accidentally knocked over and smashed by Cary Grant.

4. This Earth is Mine (1959)
Prohibition threatens to destroy a family wine making dynasty when patriarch Philippe Rambeau refuses to sell grapes to bootleggers. Family is pitted against family in order to try to save the precious California vineyard.

5. A Good Year (2006)
Russell Crowe plays Wall Street mogul Max Skinner who discovers a different side of himself when he returns to French wine country to mourn the death of an uncle. He is romanced by the routine of the vineyards and also by the alluring Fanny Chenal (Marion Cotillard) and must decide which type of life best suits him, or face a balancing act between both.

6. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
This crime thriller never actually shows wine drinking on screen, but Anthony Hopkins as psychotic Dr. Hannibal Lecter uttered one of the most recognizable quotes in movie history when he said “I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti,” thus earning a spot in any list of wine-related movies.

7. Mondovino (2004)
With a title meaning “world of wine” in Italian, this documentary film explores globalization and its impact on the world’s wine-making regions. With large multinational wine producers around, can small single-estate wineries truly survive? American film maker Jonathan Nossiter explores the question in this very intimate look at the wine-making world.

8. An Affair to Remember (1957)
In this classic melodrama, Cary Grant begs Deborah Kerr to join him on top of the Empire State Building for pink champagne. She agrees, but does not show up. Still, a favorite for any girls’ night in, a bottle of bubbly plus this DVD will be sure to make it a night to remember.

9. Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
Martha and Abby Brewster are two of the sweetest elderly women around their neighborhood in Brooklyn, but they have developed a habit of killing lonely old men and burying them in the basement as a charity. The vehicle for the murders? Wine, mixed with a little bit of arsenic, of course.

10. The Kids are All Right (2010)Julianne Moore and Annette Bening play a couple raising two teenagers in this modern family comedy-drama. The 2010 Sundance favorite directed by Lisa Cholodenko is so adept at pairing sophisticated wine choices to certain scenes that it inspired movie-and-wine connoisseur Howard A. Rodman to create a list pairing wines with favorite Focus Features films.

11. Somm (2012)

Somm is a fascinating documentary that follows four sommeliers in the last few days before what might be the most difficult test in the world. If they pass, they’ll become Master Sommeliers, of which there are only 200 in the world. It’s a nail biter with an unexpected twist at the end: a can’t miss for true wine lovers.

12. Red Obsession (2013)

There is a sub-sect of red Bordeaux that is so prestigious that their wines are no longer dunk, instead they’re traded like investments in a wine stock market. Red Obsession beautifully illustrates the prestige in Bordeaux. Then the film shows how the fastest growing wine-buying market, China, will stop at nothing to possess it all.