Jamie passion and passionfruit!

A documentary by Jonathan Nossiter who introduces us to some of the movers and shakers in the wine industry today, especially the Mondavi clan, an unctious Californian family who with some well placed allies are developing an uber flavour that they can sell globally – wines that meet American tastes but lack the individuality of their place of origin.  Nossiter puts together an interesting pastiche of the weird and wonderful, of their dogs, of the French and Italian small winemakers and their traditions of the barons and money men, of the vulgar monied crowd as he takes us across three continents and shows us the battlelines between old and new worlds in wine making.  A very interesting subject, well but perhaps not brilliantly handled by Nossiter (the film drags in parts and the hand held camera can tire), Mondovino is nevertheless a welcome documentary to mainstream releases.

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