Days of Wine & Movies….Ultimate Pairings (Redux)

I have received several emails from a VintageTexas readers that were trying trying to locate a  blog post on “wine and movie”  pairings that I did when I first started the VintageTexas. Redux is an adjective meaning “brought back, restored”. Here is my “Days of Wine & Movies….Ultimate Pairings Redux” with a link back to my original pairings. This effort made me stop and think a moment as it made me realize how much effort this blog archive contains. The original posting for the “Wine & Movies” article was numbered page 37. This redux posting will be have a page number in excess of 800! Enjoy…..

Days of Wine & Movies….Ultimate Pairings

Recently, the award winning movie, “Sideways”, brought to moviegoers a plethora of wine-speak woven around two central characters and the complexities of their life and personal flaws. This “crossover” movie brought to my attention something that I learned while accompanying two very intelligent and imaginative children through adolescence and into their productive artistic careers…..

Moviemakers, like all good artists and winemakers, aspire to achieve originality and multilayered complexity in their creations. These creators oblige us to use a multiplicity of senses in the process.

In wine tasting, the senses are predominantly taste and smell, in a movie, they are primarily visual and aural. Yet both play in what has been called “Cinéma de l’Esprit”…..”The Cinema of the Mind”.

With this approach, the movie voyeur can connect with a central theme that becomes interwoven with the complexity of the movie’s characters. With wine, the winemaker also uses a central theme….the winemaking style that then interweaves with a supporting cast of aromas and taste characteristics as the usual suspects.

Motion pictures, as wines, are often described by their complexity, their flaws, and use of dark and light nuances, along with their chilling acidity or calming sweetness.

As an art form, movies attempt to step out in new directions, bringing new individuality to topics and characters that have been a part of humanity through millennia. Likewise, wine has a 4,000 year history over which winemakers have constantly been redefining and reinterpreting the essence of the grape, the figurative Canvas in a Bottle, to please their awaiting audience with the release of each new vintage.

So, to my palate….food, wine and a movie can create an ultimate pairing of visual, aural, olfactory and tactile sensations. Below, you will find a selection of wine, food and movie pairings.

So, get a bottle of wine and a few munchies or, as my wife and I do, fix a specially paired meal to complete the experience. Then, start the DVD player, pour a glass of wine and enjoy.

More at: https://vintagetexas.com/?p=37