The American wine industry has experienced an interesting shift in tastes since the explosive popularity of the movie "Sideways," starring Paul Giamatti as oenophile Miles Raymond. Some insiders within the wine roll their eyes at the very mention of the blockbuster film, but many veteran and amateur critics refer to the varied results of Americans' perceptions of wine as simply the "Sideways effect." Some wine shop owners claim, for example, that because of a single utterance from the mouth of Miles Raymond, Merlot sales have dropped as much as twenty percent since the movie's release, while Pinot Noir sales have skyrocketed by as much as forty percent. Critics of this mindset, however, declare that the trend had already been initiated well before the movie premier. The debate continues today, over seven years later.
For your viewing pleasure, The Merlot Scene from "Sideways"
What is it about music, films, literature, and other cultural outlet modes that for some carry such profound consequences for society as an institution of the human condition? Martin analysis of the New Historicist tradition--as applied to authenticity--emphasize the self-fashioning individual and socio-political history. Martin illuminates Stephen Greenblatt's study, Renaissance Self-Fashioning, describing the situation of self-fashion as "a view of the self as a cultural artifact, a historical and ideological illusion generated by the economic, social, religious, and political upheavals of the Renaissance." Martin explores more deeply the significance of the becoming self utilizing Michel Foucault's posthumanist idea in which "there is no essential self, no humanist subject," thereby giving all existential power to the individual in fashioning oneself. So in the case of the "Sideways Effect," how do we come to terms with the statistics in the wine industry, that since the movie's release self-fashioning individuals have shifted from Merlot to Pinot Noir as their wine selection of choice. In this simple example, it seems absurd to simply ignore the cultural impact on those individuals. Or, as described in Lindholm's introduction, "Authenticity gathers people together in collectives that are felt to be real, essential, and vital, providing participants with meaning, unity, and a surpassing sense of belonging. Perhaps, then, "Sideways" was a reflection upon an already existing authenticity within wine culture, just as the "Mexican woodcarver had altered the design of the traditional mask" or as Reinhart experienced the profitability of the performance of basket making so integral to his culture. To this extent, Staub encourages these types of performances to be a necessary part of the authenticity of a given culture, as there needs to exist a "distance between the designator and the designee...[as] authenticity is not a term likely to be used self-referentially within a folk group."
I think this level of authenticity acts as a conflicting extension on Martin's argument--in terms of the Renaissance culture--that "the experience of personhood in the Renaissance world was, in short, often the experience of a divided self, of a person who was frequently forced to erect a public facade that disguised his or her convictions, beliefs, or feelings." I say Staub's discussion is an extension of Martin's because the woodcarver and the basket maker both maintain a divided self--perhaps as an extrapolation of the philosophical tradition of Descartes mind-body separation--but more practically I say Staub complicates Martin's assertions, turning them into a positivist expression of the self. Martin focuses instead on the anxiety caused by alienating features of Renaissance culture. There exists, furthermore, a level of distance and alienation within the wine culture from the rest of society. They have developed speech patterns, vocabulary, and other modes of description (such as nose, finish, terroir). They have a certain procession of movements--I would argue a performance--as follows: grab the wine glass by the stem, swirl by the stem the wine until creating a successful whirlpool, bring the glass to the nose, stick the nose inside the rim of the glass, sniff, release the glass, observe the legs and color and other physical features, bring the glass to the lips, take a sip through the teeth, hold the liquid in front of the teeth, breath over the liquid without swallowing (taking in the alcohol content and some surface notes), swallow the liquid, pucker the mouth, place the glass back on the bar, furrow the eyebrow, take note of all characteristics, lather, rinse, repeat. All the language and performance confounds those separate from the wine culture, and even the novices, but contains enough mystery and entertainment as to have drawn mass appeal. So the chicken-and-egg question (of whose like we've seen countless times in the search for true authenticity) between wine sales and the movie "Sideways" may simply not have a definitive answer, and an answer may not be the thing for which we search as culture scholars. The wine culture, like all others, carry a pluralistic level of authenticity, which delineates between the performance and the private practice, and every level in between. Perhaps we needed dilute the culture in academic terms, but leave our understanding on the level of poets. Of wine, as Alan Rickman's character intimates in "Bottle Shock," "'Wine is sunlight, held together by water.' The poetic wisdom of the Italian physicist, philosopher, and stargazer, Galileo Galilei. It all begins with the soil, the vine, the grape. The smell of the vineyard - like inhaling birth. It awakens some ancestral, some primordial... anyway, some deeply imprinted, and probably subconscious place in my soul."
I think this level of authenticity acts as a conflicting extension on Martin's argument--in terms of the Renaissance culture--that "the experience of personhood in the Renaissance world was, in short, often the experience of a divided self, of a person who was frequently forced to erect a public facade that disguised his or her convictions, beliefs, or feelings." I say Staub's discussion is an extension of Martin's because the woodcarver and the basket maker both maintain a divided self--perhaps as an extrapolation of the philosophical tradition of Descartes mind-body separation--but more practically I say Staub complicates Martin's assertions, turning them into a positivist expression of the self. Martin focuses instead on the anxiety caused by alienating features of Renaissance culture. There exists, furthermore, a level of distance and alienation within the wine culture from the rest of society. They have developed speech patterns, vocabulary, and other modes of description (such as nose, finish, terroir). They have a certain procession of movements--I would argue a performance--as follows: grab the wine glass by the stem, swirl by the stem the wine until creating a successful whirlpool, bring the glass to the nose, stick the nose inside the rim of the glass, sniff, release the glass, observe the legs and color and other physical features, bring the glass to the lips, take a sip through the teeth, hold the liquid in front of the teeth, breath over the liquid without swallowing (taking in the alcohol content and some surface notes), swallow the liquid, pucker the mouth, place the glass back on the bar, furrow the eyebrow, take note of all characteristics, lather, rinse, repeat. All the language and performance confounds those separate from the wine culture, and even the novices, but contains enough mystery and entertainment as to have drawn mass appeal. So the chicken-and-egg question (of whose like we've seen countless times in the search for true authenticity) between wine sales and the movie "Sideways" may simply not have a definitive answer, and an answer may not be the thing for which we search as culture scholars. The wine culture, like all others, carry a pluralistic level of authenticity, which delineates between the performance and the private practice, and every level in between. Perhaps we needed dilute the culture in academic terms, but leave our understanding on the level of poets. Of wine, as Alan Rickman's character intimates in "Bottle Shock," "'Wine is sunlight, held together by water.' The poetic wisdom of the Italian physicist, philosopher, and stargazer, Galileo Galilei. It all begins with the soil, the vine, the grape. The smell of the vineyard - like inhaling birth. It awakens some ancestral, some primordial... anyway, some deeply imprinted, and probably subconscious place in my soul."
Airport scene from "Bottle Shock"
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