Wine has played many roles on the big screen and even bigger roles now on the small screen. As a wine lover, I have always played the guessing game on what the wine is by seeing just a peek as it flashes on the screen or even from just a part of the label. These films and series have helped to put wine in the zeitgeist of popular culture and even influenced it.

Sideways (2004) starring Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church is perhaps California Pinot Noir’s biggest commercial. This film put Pinot Noir from California front and center for the viewing public. The many labels of Pinot Noir producers that appeared in the film became instant stars: Kistler, Whitcraft, Sea Smoke and Hitching Post. It also helped to fan the frenzy of an already passionate Pinot Noir fan base. It was also Merlot’s worst enemy as a film. Merlot did take a hit but bounced back quickly.

Going a bit further back, Big Night (1996), starring Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub featured Italian wines particularly those from the Antinori Family. Not that Italian wine needs any promotion. La Vita Bella has always included wine as a lifestyle. It is what you drink when having dinner in Italy and when you are eating with Italians. But seeing the uneaten food and full bottles of wine made me want to jump through the screen and help the two brothers polish off the feast.

Based on the 1976 wine competition the “Judgement of Paris,” where California wine defeated the French in a blind tasting test, Bottle Shock (2008) was a joyfully triumphant (at least for Americans) comedy-drama that revisited the fact that California wines can be as good if not better than wines from France. The Chateau Montelena Chardonnay and 1973 Stags Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon bested First Growths and Grand Crus from France. Almost all of the judges, save one, were French.

Wine has always been intertwined with romance. Two of my favorite wine romances are A Walk in the Clouds (1995) with Keanu Reeves and Aitana Sanchez-Gijon and A Good Year (2006) with Russell Crowe and Marion Cotillard. The first was filmed in Napa, St. Helena and Sonoma with wineries including Mayacamas Vineyards, Mount Veeder Winery and Duckhorn Vineyards. The latter was filmed mostly in Provence. I know the wine is fanciful, but I have always wanted to taste Le Coin Perdu, they make it sound so good in the movie!

Today on the small screen, Drops of God on Apple TV is going viral. The original anime is still a classic, and now they have adapted the premise into a mini-series. It has made blind tasting even more geeky. The original geekdom for blind tasting wine came from SOMM (2012) the documentary but Drops of God gives it the Hollywood polish. Drops of God also promotes some already internationally highly recognized wines like Chateau Lafleur, Chateau d’Yquem and Jacques Selosse Cuvee Exquise. With artistic license comes some inaccuracies, but as my wine buddy likes to say, “never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”

My favorite showstopper of a wine scene happens in The Gentlemen on Netflix where Stanley Johnston (Giancarlo Esposito) and Eddie Halstead (Theo James) share a bottle of 2002 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, which currently averages $29,480 according to wine-searcher.com. They strain it through a coffee filter while decanting it!

The more I see wine on the screen, the happier it makes me. It will continue the passion in those that already enjoy wine and bring even more enthusiasts into the fold. And as wine’s popularity ebbs and flows, it may just take one film or series to spark a new movement in wine.