Oscar winner knocks sales of merlot wine sideways

Even in the hyperbole-driven world of Hollywood, few would have predicted that a low-budget comedy about an unhappily divorced teacher and an oversexed actor would move America’s $20 billion-a-year wine market.

Yet that is exactly what the Oscar-winning Sideways has done, much to the despair of vineyard owners who are growing the merlot grape. The film’s hero, a schoolmaster and wine snob played by Paul Giamatti, loathes merlot, America’s most popular red wine for the past 15 years, and loves pinot noir, its hitherto less favoured rival.

On a tour of wineries near Los Angeles with his friend, he falls in love with a student, played by Virginia Madsen, telling her that the pinot’s flavours are “just the most haunting and brilliant and thrilling and subtle and . . . ancient on the planet”. He refuses to drink “any f****** merlot”.

Between October, when Sideways was released in America, and January, when it picked up its 81st award from film critics, merlot sales dipped by 2% in the western United States. Sales of pinot noir throughout the country rose by 16% and many drinkers have switched from French to Californian pinots.

Britain appears to be sipping from the same glass: Sainsbury’s reports a 20% surge in pinot sales, while Tesco and Oddbins — which is running a Sideways promotion — say that their sales have increased by 10% since the film opened here five weeks ago.

Read the article: www.timesonline.co.uk