Wine for the Confused

John Cleese is one of my favorite performers. Many of my favorite Monty Python routines were by Cleese. Fawlty Towers was absolutely brilliant – one of the funniest TV shows ever. And A Fish Called Wanda was a wonderful film. Cleese has also been host to a number of specials of all sorts, such as his great series on the human face. In 2004, he made – hosted and co-wrote – a short documentary called Wine for the Confused. It’s a marvelous piece on wine, both for someone who is a wine novice and wants to learn more as well as someone who already knows about wine.

Cleese has a very no-nonsense, anti-snob approach. He emphasizes that it’s all a matter of taste. It doesn’t matter if some wine critic thinks a wine is great. If you don’t like it, it’s not good for you. On the other hand, he also suggests not being prejudiced and being willing to try new things – or even styles of wine which you are sure you weren’t all that fond of. In one of the extras, he makes the point that he thought he wasn’t a Syrah fan, until someone urged him to try a particular one, which he then found had many of the qualities that, for him, Syrah often lacked.

Cleese lives in the Santa Barbara area of California, and during the show he travels to several wineries on the Central Coast, talking to the wine makers and tasting the wine. He focuses on six grapes, what he calls the three great white grapes and the three great red grapes: Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon. I’m not sure that I agree that these are the six great grapes(I’m a big fan of zinfandels, and also like Syrah/Shiraz as well as several Italian grapes a lot), since I have others I like at least as much, but, for a forty-five minute special, he has to limit it somehow. He does a good job exploring these grapes and in the process exploring wine – how the grapes are grown, importance of location and climate, how aging affects one, the elements of taste, and so on. Cleese is both insightful and, at times, very funny. In one scene, he satirizes the restaurants where the waiters are snobby and unhelpful suggesting wine, which helps him to point out what things are helpful (and how to ask questions to get the best match for what you like).

During one segment he takes six wines, ranging in price from $5 to $200, all hidden in paper bags and has his guests try each, then try to guess which is the $200 bottle. The guesses run the spectrum: as many guess the $5 bottle as actually guess right, backing up his “it’s all about taste” message.

In another interesting sequence, Cleese hands his guests opaque containers (the squeeze-bottle style of sports bottle) and asks them to try it. He then asks them whether it was red or white. About half guess each way. I’d have had trouble understand that part had it not been for a wine tasting Laurie and I had gone to a few weeks ago. One of the wines was a Chardonnay, but it was a very un-oaked, full-bodied chardonnay, and I can imagine, had I done a blind taste test, not being sure whether it was a hearty white or a lighter red. (I’m sure, had Cleese done his test with a Sauvignon Blanc and a Cabernet, everyone would have guessed right.)

The DVD also includes extra scenes of Cleese talking about wine and talking with wine makers. It’s available for sale from Amazon or for rental from Netflix (as is just about everything). It’s a lot of fun, and recommended to anyone interested in food and wine.