NEW YORK (Reuters) – The pinot noir repartee between Paul Giamatti’s and Virginia Madsen’s characters in the movie “Sideways” has helped spur dizzying sales of the red wine during a lingering U.S. glut, wine experts say.
� U.S. consumers are salivating over the scene in which Giamatti’s “Miles,” a neurotic, failing author, evangelizes pinot’s subtle delicacy to Madsen’s “Maya” in an attempt to wow her with his wine knowledge.
“People come in and immediately say, ‘Where’s the pinot noir?”‘ said Steve Villani, manager of Columbus Circle Liquors in Manhattan. “After a while, we began to ask them if they saw the movie, and they laugh out loud and say, ‘yes.
I’m a big fan of Two-Buck Chuck, so you can already tell I know nothing about wine. I started drinking Brunello after reading Under the Tuscan Sun, and any and all white wine tastes good to me so long as it’s cold enough. I had a bad merlot experience in college and can’t even look at the stuff without feeling queasy, besides which, it always used to taste like licking tree bark to me even when I would drink it. Wine snobs, feel free to tell me I suck.
You can tell it’s been a long week when I’m thinking about alcohol at 9 a.m.
A.