PREMIERE.COM'S REVIEW (posted 3/31/05)

To those who aren't already oenophiles, wine connoisseurship might conjure up stereotypes of Uppity West Side intellectuals hobnobbing in turtlenecks, or Warholian Europeans who loftily gesture as they chain-smoke. So early into Mondovino, when someone describes wine as "a religious relationship between man and nature," it might be easy for the uninitiated to dismiss the greater message hiding under this lofty world view, especially since the film is drunk on the same philosophy.  Shot, cut and directed by sometime sommelier Jonathan Nossiter (Sunday, Signs & Wonders), this wonderfully witty docu-essay—which nabs its title from the Mondo Cane shockumentary series of the '60s and '70s—uses the milieu of the wine-making industry to illustrate the damaging effects (namely, the homogenization of tastes) brought about by globalization. 

Blown up to 35mm from a handheld DV look that droops, darts, zooms and refocuses with an intimate tipsiness, Mondovino introduces small-time grape growers and some of the power players who control their futures, cross-cutting from the vineyards of Italy and France to the wineries of South America (with Sideways glances to Napa Valley) like some sort of epic espionage thriller.  Perhaps the most villified is Bordeaux-based Michel Rolland, a fascinating if not megalomaniacal consultant who counsels clients in 12 countries, and loves emphasizing "micro-oxygenization" (a process nobody seems to understand).  The argument made is that Rolland, admitted to be a friend of Robert Parker (America's preeminent wine critic, whose million dollar-insured palette is highly influential), advises everyone to manipulate their fermentations the same way, so that Parker will give his subjective thumbs-up—and therefore—all will taste the same, regardless of region.  As a subpoint, the Mondavi dynasty is tinted to look like a family of corporate mobsters, but while Nossiter favors the "little guys" and loves to catch the imperialists off-guard, his occasional on-camera appearances are  more subtle and naturalistic than Michael Moore in Fahrenheit 9/11 or Morgan Spurlock in Super Size Me.

Because Nossiter validates his concerns in a way that relates to every industry under the same threat of global absorption, his criminally heavy-handed gotcha's deserve a reduced sentence of simple snobbery.  Mondovino is also overlong (which explains Nossiter's plans to expand the project into a 10-hour series) and sometimes more sprawling than its forcedly amateur style warrants, but the film's ambitiously eye-opening hypothesis, colorful characters, genuine compassion, and unexpected humor will make for a great vintage in years to come.

—Aaron Hillis