An interesting movie, but what a load of hooey! The movie completely ignores the fact that in blind tastings, French critics who dismiss the pretensions of the Napa vintners and claim to prefer the pure, natural taste of terroir, choose the American wines. This movie is about hype all right, but it's not Mondavi; its about the pretentious claim of many a traditional winery that only centuries of winemaking culture and knowledge of terroir can lead to a good product. This is about as ridiculous as the claim that good bread can only be produced in certain traditional locales, i.e., that a Parisian baguette can only be good if it is from Paris. I'm glad to say that both good bread and good wine can be found in many, many places, and more every year. And speaking from experience, the Chilean and Argentinian wines of 30 years ago were dreadful! Nothing has been lost in adopting international standards for their wine industry.
Review of Mondovino
