'Wine is dead,' says the famous southern French winemaker, Aimé Guibert in Mondovino, a new two-and-a-half-hour documentary about the world of wine. Guibert is given to overstatement, but when the owner of Mas de Daumas Gassac, one of the most celebrated wines in the Languedoc, tells you that it's all downhill from here, it sets you thinking. Or it does if you're a wine hack.
The film covers a lot of ground - literally so in the sense that it was shot on three different continents over a period of two years - but its central theme is the uneasy relationship between modernism and tradition. The first is represented by, among others, the Robert Mondavi winery in California and by Michel Rolland, a near ubiquitous wine consultant; the latter by Guibert, the De Montille family in Burgundy and a host of less well-known growers.
He doesn't say so, but you get the impression that the director, Jonathan Nossiter, favours the latter camp. You sense that Battista Columbu, a grower in Sardinia, comes closest to articulating Nossiter's own philosophy of wine when he says that 'we mustn't be distracted by the phantoms of progress, which can destroy us and destroy nature, and bring suffering to others. Here in Sardinia, we have a millennial culture. We ought to live in tranquillity on this earth.'
I'm a little less sentimental about the past. I love traditional practices, but only when they result in something that is worth drinking. All too often, especially in France, people invoke 'terroir' (a combination of soil, climate and tradition) to cover up for bad winemaking. Wines that are faulty are inexcusable, even more so when they come from a great vineyard.
There is a place for artisanal techniques, but in wine the great revolution of the last 30 years has been scientific. It may be true that, as Guibert says, 'it takes a poet to make a great wine', but it also takes someone who understands the basic biochemistry. Australia in particular (which doesn't feature in the film) has brought a much more rigorous approach to grape growing and winemaking, something that has forced the Old World to up its game. These days, no one can get away with producing poorly made wine. Not for long, at any rate.
Has this led to a certain amount of standardisation, to a world where individuality is under threat? In some senses it has. The growth of big brands, the commercial muscle of the supermarkets, the emergence of fashionable wine consultants and the disproportionate power of a handful of American wine journalists is certainly taking us down a dangerous road. Most wine is better made than it was 10 years ago, but it is also more uniform in aroma and taste.
For all that, I think that Aimé Guibert's position is far too pessimistic. Wine is not dead. It is too diverse to be killed by the forces of cynicism, globalisation or commercial expediency. Every time you buy a bottle of wine, you can help to keep it that way. Avoid big brands - or whatever happens to be on promotion this week - and choose something that is an authentic expression of the place it came from. If you want some inspiration, go and see the film when it opens next month.
Mondovino is out on December 10
