“Wine Tasting for Beginners” begins with a premise that passionate wine drinkers would be only too happy to believe is true: one bottle of wine a day does not make an alcoholic. Provided, of course, that it’s a “big” wine, not just any booze. The wine merchant, connoisseur and drinker with a heart condition, whose daily intake is more like one bottle plus, tries to convince his doctor of this after ending up in the practice with a mild heart attack. He drinks a lot, but only good things.
In other words, if Jacques (Bernard Campan) didn’t have a heart condition, the widower could continue to drink unabashedly. But the doctor, of course, forbids him his staple food. But only with a heavy heart, because the doctor himself likes to drink wine, which he naturally orders from Jacques for three hundred euros a case.
Even the altar wine has to be a Grand Cru in this area
Directed by Ivan Calbérac and based on a tabloid play, the feel-good film, originally titled “La dégustation”, takes place in a French wine-growing region where even the wine for the altar is a Grand Cru. Worshiping at church is Hortense (Isabelle Carré), a lonely spinster who eats lunch and plays Scrabble with her Catholic mom every weekend. As a nurse, she gives birth to children in the hospital and wishes for one herself. She also takes care of the homeless. So that they don’t just have to drink the said booze, which everyone should beware of, regardless of income class and social class, she gets them a Château something from Jacques. The grumpy wine merchant and the old maid: a match made in the wine cellar, where a drunken story turns into love.
Wine tastings, visits to scenic wine-growing regions, setbacks and reconciliations ensue, accompanied by Jacques’ difficulty in letting go of his favorite drink. Above all, Jacques gets Steve from the welfare office at his side, a young, happy and smoking intern who is also a bit non-French, i.e. Muslim – but, since he is committed to laicism, “respects” the religion, but does not “practice” it. . And just this Steve develops such a fine nose and such a fine palate that he is considered to take over the shop from the heart ailing Monsieur Jacques. If only he didn’t have all this trouble with the other problem kids in the park he can’t get rid of.
Should anyone still get upset that nowadays with cloud Diversity quotas in films and series social engineering is practiced everywhere, we recommend this “wine tasting” to convince yourself that the most conservative and conformist mainstream cinema has been doing this social handicraft work all along. Because France presents itself here not only from its most obese side, but also from its socially leadenest side. Everyone has a right to belong to the republic as long as they only uphold French cultural assets, i.e. have a fine palate for noble Médoc. And ready to embody a cliché. The Arabic problem kid has to spit into the spittoon at the wine tasting, which he passed with flying colors, so that his street credibility is maintained, and radiate a vague criminality to the end. Otherwise the white, bourgeois, “big” wine-drinking audience would no longer be familiar with the film. The right to participate is the right to be a stereotype.
Now how does the story of Jacques and Hortense fit into that of Jacques and Steve? Good question. But it doesn’t matter. Because none of that is as important as the fate of a 2000 vintage Château Margaux, which eventually turns up in a safe and which we mere mortal wine drinkers can only continue to dream about.
Wine tasting for beginners, France 2022 – Directed and written by Ivan Calbérac. Camera: Philippe Guilbert. With Bernard Campan, Isabelle Carré, Mounir Amamra. Studio Canal, 92 minutes. Theatrical release: September 29, 2022.