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Overlooked & Underrated Docs & Features
(click on broll or dschwartz for all his posts)
Boom Varietal and Somm: Two Docs About Wine
These two documentaries for oenophiles everywhere are intriguing and engaging even if one doesn’t share that level of passion for grape juice and alcohol.
‘Boom Varietal: The Rise of Argentine Malbec’ tells the story of a grape variety called, of course, malbec, and how Argentina became center-of-the-universe for malbec growing, winemaking, and, especially, exporting.
Director Sky Pinnick and company interview a large number of people—growers, winemakers, exporters, sellers, entrepreneurs, and people who know a lot about wine.
In the films brief 72 minutes Pinnick makes sure we see a lot of Argentina, and hear a lot of great music by Franchot Tone.
Like a hypnotized zombie I had my very first glass of malbec, El Libre Malbec, from Mendoza, Argentina, after watching the film.
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‘Somm’ follows a small group of men preparing for, enduring, and then learning the results of their grueling examination for the Master Sommelier designation sanctioned by the Court of Master Sommeliers. The year of this particular exam 50 took it, and six passed. It is given annually. There are approximately 200 Master Sommeliers on Earth.
The cameras and mics are with these men for their last ten days of exam preparation in the San Francisco Bay Area, their flight to Dallas for the exam, and, much to my surprise, with some of the men as each sits in a room with a Master Sommelier whose job it is to tell them the result. Master Sommeliers appear speaking of their work and this exam. Wives and girlfriends, too, tell their stories of playing Virgil to their man’s Dante.
Writer/director Jason Wise has done a—and I apologize ahead of time, but I do mean it—‘masterful’ job of covering the action, and, especially, the drama of already talented and accomplished sommeliers vying for their ultimate title.
Brian Carmody’s music is absolutely perfect. His rich and varied score makes an already-good film great.
Now, I need to recover a bit from that drama. There’s still some of that Argentine El Libre in the bottle.