Wine Movie Blog - Wine for the Confused

Wine for the Confused is a documentary-style film that teaches viewers the most basic information about being a wine connoisseur. The famous actor John Cleese serves as the host for this film. He claimed in the beginning that although he holds wine in high esteem, he didn’t know much about the art of being a wine drinker. The rest of the film served as his own journey, as well as the audience’s, to better understand wine culture. The films attempts to spice up the sometimes dull information with a bit of humor from the host.

Something that John Cleese notes multiple times throughout the documentary is the same thing that has been pounded into our heads in the Geography of Wine class – don’t let anyone tell you what wine you should like, you are the master of your own palate. Cleese tells us to keep that in mind from the very beginning of the wine journey. Aside from learning the process of making wine, he also emphasizes the importance of gaining a good vocabulary on how to describe the smell and taste of wines.

Much of the movie takes place in Santa Barbara, California. This is Cleese’s first stop in the movie, and is where he learns about the process of fermentation by a wine producer. They note the formula for creating alcohol, as we learned in class is yeast + sugar -> carbon dioxide + alcohol.

While learning about the fermentation process, Cleese learns about what he calls the “3 Great Whites.” These are Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay. Though Cleese thought that Riesling was only made as a sweet wine, he learned that it can also serve as a dry wine through the fermentation process. This relates to what we’ve learned in class because we now know that drier wines have likely been fermenting longer than sweeter wines do. This gives more time for more sugar to convert into alcohol. The dry sensation also comes from the tannins in the wine, which come from the grape skins that assist in the fermentation process.

With Sauvignon Blanc, the host learned that this type of grape variety in wine is usually described as more acidic. From class, we know that in white wines, the acidic taste comes primarily from malic acid. As malic acid decreases over time, this means that a lot of Sauvignon Blanc grapes probably don’t sit on the vine too long before being harvested. An interesting fact that the wine producer told Cleese was that fruitiness detected in a wine doesn’t always mean that the wine is sweeter. We learned in class that acidity in a wine usually has to be well balanced with the sugar content. So the wine producer in the film was basically saying that you could sub the sugar content with fruitiness and it will have the same balancing effect.

The last “Great White” they discuss is Chardonnay. The host and wine producer discussed how Chardonnay is typically described as “creamy” and “buttery”. They noted that “creamy” was more of a textural sensation and buttery was an actual flavor. Just as we learned in class, to get the creaminess in Chardonnay, it is put through a malolactic fermentation where the malic acid naturally present in the grape juice is converted into lactic acid, which gives it more of a milky sensation. We also learned that the buttery flavor in Chardonnays come from being aged in oak for a certain amount of time. The more time the wine sits in the oak barrels, the stronger that buttery taste becomes.

Before talking about the 3 “Big Reds,” John Cleese conducts an experiment with some of his friends. He puts wine in opaque bottles and has each of his friends drink them. They all discover that they can’t tell simply by the taste whether the wine is red or white. I found that extremely interesting because I’ve always thought whites and reds to differ severely in not only taste, but tactile sensation. Cleese mentions that red wine gets it color from the grape juice sitting in its own skins after the grapes have been crushed.

The first “Big Red” that John Cleese explores is Pinot Noir. He learns that this wine is the most difficult to make because the grape variety is so fickle to grow. He says this wine is typically described as having flavors of plum, cherries and black pepper.

For Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, the host of the film travels to Australia. We know from class that this is a good geographic region to grow grapes for red wines because of the warmer, drier climate they have in Australia.

Merlot is the second “Big Red” that John Cleese learns about from an Australian wine producer. The producer said that this grape variety in wines is typically described as having flavors of red plums, bing cherries, and spice.  In the film, they talk about the importance of vintage. As we know from class, climate has the biggest effect on wine making. If a certain vintage year suffered unpredictable weather, the product won’t likely taste as good as other vintage years where the weather was ideal for growing the certain types of grapes.

Punching down the cap is also mentioned in the documentary. We know from class that this process can be necessary for the grape juice to get better contact with the skins, therefore increasing the color of the wine and the tannins, among other things.

Cabernet Sauvignon is the last grape variety the film specifically mentions. It is the third and final “Big Red.” The wine producer particularly discusses the influence of terrior on wine flavors with Cleese. We know from class that terroir comes form the French word for “land,” which basically eludes to the influences the soils and surrounding environment has on the flavors the grapes absorb. The wine producer in the film gives an example of the eucalyptus tree that is purposefully planted near his grape vines. The tree’s proximity with the grapes will likely give it some of its flavor. An interesting fact that I learned in this part of the film was that if a Cabernet Sauvignon has a green bell pepper flavor, it usually means that the grapes hadn’t properly ripened when they were picked.

In the rest of the film, John Cleese learns about buying wine and how to store/serve it. This last part of the film takes place back in Santa Barbara, California. Cleese learns that when buying wine in restaurants, you will likely see the price shoot up 2.5 times what it would be if you just went out and bought it yourself. A way you can tell if a server is trying to trick you into buying a crappy, overpriced wine is if they have overly dramatic, cheesy movements and speech when talking about the particular wine.

When storing the wine, the film’s host learns from an expert that you should keep whites stored below 60 degrees and avoid sunlight and vibration. Reds are kept in much the same condition, except their temperature should be closer to room temperature. They also mention that the type of glass a wine is presented in can somewhat significantly effect the taste. In one of the Gary Vaynerchuk videos we’ve watched for our Geography of Wine class, he did the exact same experiment. However, in Gary’s video, although he said the glass made some difference, the overall effect was barely detectable.

Overall I thought Wine for the Confused was very direct and I appreciated the small bouts of humor. I think it is a perfect introduction into the wine world and almost entirely reiterated everything we’ve learned in class so far. I would definitely recommend this film to anyone who is serious about wanting to learn about wine. As for a Saturday night date movie? Not so much.