Survival Arts

"John Cleese's Wine for the Confused" (2004)

One of the pleasures of having a Netflix subsription is being able to add oddball titles to my queue, click-and-forget, and receive it later as a "surprise." One such title is a short wine documentary, "John Cleese's Wine for the Confused":

Wine snobs, beware: Monty Python's witty John Cleese aims to educate the masses with this enlightening, snoot-free wine guide. Cleese guides wine novices through the basics -- finding wines you like, getting the best value, and serving and storing wine at home. His vintner's tour includes lessons in wine vocabulary and identifying subtle flavors. Not a fan of snobbery in the least, Cleese also reveals how to cork up condescending sommeliers.

Cleese has a house on the Central California coast, and decided - on a shoestring budget, which he freely admits on camera - to visit a few of the local wineries, surveying products of the handful of "great grapes" (e.g. Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir). I found the tips about finding bargains in a wine seller's shop particularly useful.

Unlike a commentator in the IMDB entry, I'm not surprised Cleese would do such a documentary: in the early 90's, working for a company in London, I found the tedium of mandatory training videos greatly lessened with Cleese as presenter. He has an impressive resume of this type of stuff.

Posted by Russell Whitaker at June 18, 2006 04:33 PM | TrackBack