Bottle Shock is a shameless grab at the yuppie audience that
flocked to the similarly themed Sideways. But it doesn’t take
much longer than the opening credits—as the camera drools
embarrassingly over acres of sun-dappled vineyards—to realize
that there isn’t anything subtle or winning about the newest mash note
to Napa. Never mind the “true story” that inspired it: Bottle
Shock is a jingoistic light drama, so crude and clueless it flirts
with outright racism.
It’s the mid-1970s, before American wines got any goddamn respect,
and long-haired slacker Bo Barrett (Chris Pine) is goofing off around
his daddy’s vineyard. He doesn’t much care for work, but when his
father’s attractive new intern Sam (Rachael Taylor) starts prancing
around the property in formfitting overalls, he makes a token effort at
industriousness. Speaking of tokens, Bo has a friend: Gustavo (Freddy
Rodriguez), the son of a Mexican laborer and the real brains behind the
Barrett family viticulture. Together, the trio gets along
swimmingly—
until one night, when Sam pays a visit to
Gustavo’s servant quarters, a romantic hut out by the vines.
There’s a whole separate subplot involving an English wine snob
(Alan Rickman) who agrees to host a now-famous blind tasting pitting
august French wines against their upstart American counterparts. But
the wine is just a sideshow. The real narrative climax comes when Sam,
for no discernible reason, ditches clever Gustavo for her true destiny:
a romp in the sack with young Master Bo, he of the blond hair, tall
stature, promising inheritance, etc. Bottle Shock gets strangely
gung ho about the essential integrity of this hippie, but offers zero
justification for the preference. Poor Freddy Rodriguez. There’s no
room for a Mexican-American hero in a movie about California’s
self-respect.
