< blog | Cheers to merlot!

Cheers to merlot!

Celebrating International Merlot Day

Over a dozen years have whizzed by since the movie Sideways swirled into the spotlight with five Oscar nominations, including the prestigious Best Picture category, leading up to the 2005 Academy Awards. While the film, a wild adventure exploring fear and loathing in the wine-soaked landscapes of California’s Santa Ynez Valley, only managed to pocket the slightly less glamorous award for Best Adapted Screenplay, its true legacy lies in the uproar it caused within the wine industry.

For those who missed out on this cinematic gem (cough, millennials, cough), Sideways chronicles the escapades of two chums on a journey through the picturesque Santa Barbara wine region. We meet the dashing soon-to-be-wed actor Jack Cole, played by the charismatic Thomas Haden Church, and the down-on-his-luck divorcé Miles Raymond, masterfully portrayed by Paul Giamatti. Among Giamatti’s unforgettable moments are his impassioned ode to pinot noir and, of course, the legendary line, “I am not drinking any fucking merlot!”

Fast forward to today, and pinot noir has taken California’s wine scene by storm, while merlot has had to recover from its bruised reputation. The irony is that, even though pinot noir is now flourishing in California, the surplus of pinots has also given rise to some (in my opinion) rather flabby bottles resulting from overcropped grapes planted in all the wrong places.

I personally think the merlots of Santa Ynez Valley are hidden gems in the world of wine and deserve a second look. Paul Giamatti and Sideways writer-director Alexander Payne reunited recently for the first time in nearly 20 years for their new film The Holdovers, which is supposed to be pretty great. Maybe they had the chance to talk about a Sideways sequel where merlot gets a better rep?

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See our complete list of upcoming music and wine events in the Santa Ynez Valley.