Mondovino (PG-13)

synopsis

Documentary filmmaker Jonathan Nossiter focuses his camera on the international wine trade, traveling to France, California, Italy and New York and speaking with winemakers both great and small. While old-timer Aime Guibert, of tiny Mas de Daumas-Gassac, pronounces that wine must be made by a poet, high-powered consultant Michel Rolland circles the globe ensuring that wineries make lots of money. Nossiter meets the Mondavi family, other families and wine critics James Suckling and Robert Parker, whose words can make or break a vintage. Although Nossiter set out merely to find the characters behind the wine industry, he ended up with a poignant look at some important issues, including deforestation, the corporation versus the independent company and even communism. The result is an inside examination of a world very few people see.