“Bottle Shock” rocks. The film about the Paris tasting of 1976, which opens here Aug. 15,  is splendidly rendered and acted. I will be especially interested in seeing how Chris Pine transforms himself from carefree hippie Bo Barrett in this movie to uptight Capt. James T. Kirk in next year’s “Star Trek” film.

But I digress (and I will be writing more about the film in next week’s paper). I’m actually here to talk about the hue and cry that have accompanied the recent sales of the two wineries that shocked the vinous world by besting the best of France back in ‘76: Chateau Montelena and Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars.

Last month, an interesting article (with a fabulous illo) at Appellation America lamented the loss of iconic Napa wineries to mega-lo-conglomerates. It’s hard to argue that point: An era has passed with the sales of those two wineries (Montelena’s happened after that article appeared, btw) and Robert Mondavi before them.

But a lot of Napa’s icons are still on the scene, with Warren Winiarski still serving as a Stag’s Leap’s advisor and Bo Barrett part of Montelena’s new winemaking team. And it should hardly be a major concern when an estimable French winery such as Château Cos-d’Estournel takes over a California counterpart such as Montelena. (The struggles of certain Mondavi brands are another matter.)

But it’s hard to do much boo-hooing over any of this (and to be fair, the Appellation piece was more wistful than whiny). After all, there’s more great wine being made in California than ever before, and new icons are emerging — although a much smaller percentage of them are in Napa, as Sonoma and the Central Coast continue their emergence as near-equals.

Via mailing lists, I get a good bit of wine made by folks who I’m fairly certain will eventually be revered figures a la Winiarski (who still has a twinkle in his nearly 80-year-old eyes when he sticks a peacock feather in your shirt pocket and exclaims “it expresses the way my wines spread out beautifully on the palate”).

I’m talking about Carlisle’s Mike Officer, a former software guru who makes superb syrahs, zins and blends at astonishingly affordable prices. And Sine Qua Non’s Manfred Krankl (sorry, no website), whose profound and pricey Rhone-style wines are justifiably craved from coast to roasted slope. And David Ramey, who makes everything he touches better. And even Bo Barrett’s wife, Heidi Peterson Barrett, who made Screaming Eagle the most coveted of the “cult” wines and recently added Fantesca to her lengthy list of clients.

I would add Pax and Sea Smoke, but their winemakers — Pax Mahle and Kris Curran, respectively — recently departed, so we’ll (anxiously) await what happens at both wineries.

Point is, there will always be talented up-and-comers with something to prove in the wine world. A lot like the real-life characters Bo Barrett and Gustavo Brambila in “Bottle Shock.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 at 8:48 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.