Updated! Top Wine Movies Worth Watching

Written by Madeline Puckette

The last 10 years have enjoyed an increase in wine movies that started with the genre blockbuster: Sideways. Just this year, two more films have hit the screens and one of them has the potential to be a future classic. Check out some of the best wine movies below!

You may also like… 10 Ways to Pair Classic Movies and Wine

Top Wine Movies (in no particular order)

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Anyone can enjoy the following films, even your non-wine loving friends! You might even get them excited to try a lil’ more wine… We’ll get to the extra geeky wine movies next.

Somm Movie Poster

Somm (2013)

A documentary film that follows 4 men attempting to pass the Master Sommelier exam.

Layered and complex… like a fine wine, Somm follows the tribulations of 4 real people –real sommeliers– in the final days before the most challenging exam of their life. If they pass they’ll become Master Sommeliers; a title shared among just 200 people around the world.

Somm Smelling Wine
Brian McClintic, Ian Cauble and Dustin Wilson in “Somm”

Somm is much more than just a wine movie, it’s a documentary about real people, their passion, and their will to succeed while struggling both physically and emotionally under extreme pressure. What’s more, there is an unexpected twist in the end –so thought-provoking, you’ll be shocked that it really happened.

DLynn Proctor in Somm

Watch it! Check out DLynn Proctor to the left!

Download it and watch it while drinking a glass of German Riesling with a fresh container of tennis balls close by.

Don’t ask, just do it.

Available on iTunes (drop a comment if you find it elsewhere)

Watch the Trailer


Sideways Movie Poster

Sideways (2004)

Two men reaching middle age with not much to show but disappointment, embark on a week long road trip through California’s wine country, just as one is about to take a trip down the aisle.

– IMDb

A comedy/drama of two guys struggling to maintain their friendship on a bachelor weekend in California’s wine country. The trip quickly deteriorates and threatens to break up the wedding and their friendship for good.

Sideways Movie Wine Dump Bucket
Miles bucket diving in “Sideways”

There is a guilty pleasure in watching Miles (played by Paul Giamatti), a self-deprecating wine snob, cope with his midlife crisis while on vacation in wine country.

Time to grab a blanket, a bottle of California Merlot and watch this movie!


Bottle Shock Movie Poster

Bottle Shock (2008)

The story of the early days of California winemaking featuring the now infamous, blind Paris wine tasting of 1976 that has come to be known as “Judgment of Paris”.

– IMDb

The film follows a British wine critic and his passion to gather California’s best wines and put them up against France’s best wines in a blind tasting. The results have forever changed the wine world.

Bottle Shock Wine Tasting
Alan Rickman aka Professor Snape

Bottle Shock has everything, female cellar intern, sex in the vineyard, and lots of delicious wine! Although Bottle Shock might not be very accurate, it does include some of the best fly-over shots of Napa Valley you’ll ever see. Your heart will skip like a little kid, especially if you’re drinking buttery Chardonnay.

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WARNING: Wine Geeks Only

The following films are best reserved for your serious wine friends. ← Is this clear enough?

Mondovino Movie Poster

Mondovino (2004)

A documentary on the impact of globalization on the world’s different wine regions.
– IMDb

Mondovino is a documentary that attempts to show-and-dispute the capitalistic side of wine. Within the documentary you’ll see some behind-the-scenes encounters with Michelle Rolland, the man whose winemaking style has become a world-wide template to success.

Mondovino-in-Piazza-Maggiore-Bologna-16-7-12
Intravino

While the film aggressively pokes at major figures in the wine business, it is a detailed look at the inner-workings of the wine world.

Geeky Highlights

  • Flying winemakers.
  • Micro-oxygenation.
  • Wine consultants.

Red Obsession Movie Poster

Red Obsession (2013)

The great chateaux of Bordeaux struggle to accommodate the voracious appetite for their rare, expensive wines, which have become a powerful status symbol in booming China.
– IMDb

There is a sub-sect of red Bordeaux that is so prestigious that their wines are no longer drunk, instead they’re traded like investments in a wine stock market.

Red Obsession - China and Bordeaux
Chinese Vineyards

Red Obsession beautifully illustrates the prestige in Bordeaux. Then the film shows how the fastest growing wine-buying market, China, will stop at nothing to possess it all.

Geeky Highlights

  • Bordeaux 1st Growths.
  • The China wine market.

Honorable Mention…

Blood Into Wine Movie Poster

Blood Into Wine (2010)

Maynard James Keenan, frontman of such bands as Tool, A Perfect Circle, and Puscifer, takes center stage in a documentary about his favorite hobby — winemaking.
– IMDb

Geeky Highlights

  • Esoteric wine regions.
  • Milla Jovovich drinking wine.

Written byMadeline Puckette

James Beard Award-winning author and Wine Communicator of the Year. I co-founded Wine Folly to help people learn about wine. @WineFolly