Top 5 Best Wine Moments in Film and not a hint of Liver or Chianti

I was flicking through the channels the other night and stumbled across Silence of the Lambs just as Sir Anphoney Ham-it-up-kins was doing his “ate his liver with some fava beans and a glass of Chianti” speech.

It got me thinking. What are the best wine references in film? So, here’s my Top Five -

1 – Intolerable Cruelty – Margaux ’54

George Clooney is waiting for Catherine Zeta Jones to arrive for dinner and is obsessively polishing his teeth. She arrives, and in turn so does the waiter and the following exchange occurs:

Waiter: Something to start. Some wines perhaps
MILES: Red
MARILYN: French
MILES: Bordeaux
MARILYN: Chateau Margaux
MILES: 57?
MARILYN: 59?
MILES: 54
MARILYN: Oh, Mr Massey

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYDb9O8EWDM]

2 -”The Muppet Movie” (1979) – Sparkling Muscatel from Idaho

Steve Martin plays a haughty sommelier in what must be the best wine moment in a children’s wine film – how many can there be? Kermit is out to dinner with Miss Piggy and orders a bottle of bubbly – hilarity ensues!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiGAAHG0O1A]

3 – Notorious” (1946) – Champagne

In which Alfred Hitchcock makes it nerve-racking to watch people drink Champagne. Cary Grant suspects that the Nazis are hiding a substance used to make radioactive weapons in wine bottles – I’ve had a few bottles that have tasted like uranium but that’s another story.

He and Ingrid Bergman poke around in the wine cellar of a mansion, opening bottles, while the Nazis throw a big party. If they are caught, they will be killed!!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFcm4mTaOlc]

4 – Sideways – Cheval Blanc ’61

Much of the films post publicity centred on the increased sales of Pinot Noir attributed to Virginia Madsen’s extraordinary speech in the middle of the film (quite frankly she could soliloquise about beetroot and I’d buy it off her).

However it is Miles’ relationship with his prized bottle of Cheval Blanc ’61 that is central to our appreciation of the film. A lovelorn and broken Miles, who has been saving his most prized possession for the most special of days ends up drinking the bottle in a fast food outlet with nothing more than a greasy burger and a brown paper bag. Tragic

5 – Manhattan Murder Mystery – Mouton Rothschild ’45

Diane Keaton and Alan Alda, take in a wine tasting, providing Woody Allen an opportunity to take a pop at wine snobs:

TED: That Mouton 45. That was . . .
CAROL: Didn’t you love it?
TED: Oh, that was-was like, sublime, you know?
CAROL: Yeah.
TED: And the inexpensive Spanish one. Wasn’t that . . . wasn’t that a nice surprise?
CAROL: It was very, very . . .
TED: Wasn’t that great?
CAROL: Yeah.