Best Wine Movies for French Wine Lovers Including Some Surprises

Do you want our take on which wine movies are best for French wine lovers? Here are a few options, many are popular, and a couple may surprise you.

Wine Movies: Start Here

• Mondovino: This is a great documentary that examines the critics, consultants, and the big guys vs. the little guys. It offers an opinion of wine’s fate as the world gets smaller and smaller.

Focus on French Wine Regions

• A Year In Burgundy: Spend a full year in Burgundy, France’s most legendary wine region. Follow all the trials and tribulations that come with working the soil in a land that’s become almost more myth than reality.

• A Year In Champagne: This follow-up to A Year In Burgundy, and covers Champagne: bubbly’s hallowed home.

• Grand Cru: Pascal Marchand, an aspiring Canadian poet, arrived in Burgundy in 1983 to work the harvest. Years later, he is a world-renowned winemaker. Learn about the difficulties makers face a caution against climate change.

Scandals and Scoundrels

• Red Obsession: Demand exceeds supply for the Classified Growths of Bordeaux. This great documentary examines how China’s relentless pursuit of prestige bottlings affects these chateaus.

• Sour Grapes: A look at the darker side of wine buying and collecting, this documentary covers one of the wine world’s most prolific fraudsters and how he managed to dupe the wine world for so long.

Succession-the French Way

• You Will Be My Son: A despotic vineyard owner in Saint-Émilion favors his son’s charismatic childhood friend, and family tensions ensue.

• Back to Burgundy: After a 10-year absence, Jean returns to his hometown when his father falls ill. Reuniting with his sister and brother, they have to rebuild their relationship and trust as a family again.

Wine Movies Based on History: USA vs France

• Bottle Shock: Got back to 1976 and the famous “Judgement of Paris.” British ex-pat and wine shop owner Steven Spurrier heads to the not-yet-well-known Napa Valley in search of the best wines for his upcoming blind wine competition of California vs French wines.

Our Most Favorite, Least Likely Favorite

• Babette’s Feast: This 1987 Danish-language film adapted from Karen Blixen’s novel is a love story about food and drink. It shows the transforming power of gastronomy in the most beautiful way. The first half of the movie is rather slow, but stick around till the end, it’s worth it.

Other Notable Wine and Food Movies

Clients have given us their favorites to add to our list, which includes:

• Chocolat
• Big Night
• Chef
• The Hundred-Foot Journey
• Jiro Dreams of Sushi