A Flick and a Wine Pick

Christopher Sawyer, professional wine writer and the official sommelier of the 2006 Sonoma Valley Film Festival’s Cinema Epicuria, gives WineCountry.com readers the low-down on great movies, and great wines to drink while getting your film fix.

Movie: Walk the Line
Wine: Zinfandel

Movie: Walk the Line

In the intriguing category of American icons and music, it is hard to avoid bringing up the name Johnny Cash, a legendary country singer, songwriter and guitarist who spent nearly fifty years of his life capturing the mood of the nation in lyrical form. And for his talents, he received a vast array of #1 hits and gold records. He was also a man whose rise to stardom came with many bumps along the way.

Now out on DVD, Walk the Line is an epic celluloid journey that chronicles the core of Cash’s illustrious career: from his early days with Sun Records in the 1950s; his romantic attraction to singer-songwriter June Carter; his hard fight to kick drugs, and alcohol abuse; to the spiritual redemption that helped save his career.

Joaquin Phoenix, who was nominated for an Academy Award for his portrayal of Cash, is splendid in this movie. In addition to giving a gritty performance at various stages of Cash’s life, Phoenix also does a brilliant job of actually singing the songs that made the musician famous.

One of the film’s most powerful scenes is Cash’s stunning performance for inmates at Folsom State Prison in January 1968. This was the same monumental concert recorded live by Columbia Records that would go on to become one of his most popular albums of all-times.

Reese Witherspoon gave an Academy Award winning performance as June Carter, the legendary singer-songwriter that Cash married in 1968.

Much of the strength of the movie was director James Mangold’s ability to capture the chemistry between these two characters. In many ways, he was able to demonstrate the nuances of their personal relationship by highlighting the lyrics of the songs they wrote and sang.

One of the saving graces for Cash early career is the release of “Ring of Fire” in 1963, a hit song originally written by Carter and Merle Kilgore. The song quickly climbed to the top of the charts and in many ways helped rejuvenate the life of the performer that had not had a #1 hit in nearly four years prior. The couple also performed many songs together, including a wonderful cover (in this case a wonderful performance by Phoenix and Witherspoon) of Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe.”

Wine: Zinfandels

The Ravenswood 2003 Old Hill Zinfandel and the Bucklin 2003 Old Hill Zinfandel are two exceptional wines to pair well with this movie. Both wines are made with fruit sourced from the historic Old Hill Vineyard located in the heart of Sonoma Valley, an area that locals refer to as the “Banana Belt” due to the consistent warm temperature during growing season.

The original vineyard on the property was planted in the 1880s and is farmed organically by Will Bucklin. Although the styles of winemaking vary slightly between these two wines, both contain roughly 75 percent zinfandel. The rest of the blend is composed of grenache, petite sirah, mataro (mourvedre), carignane, alicante bouschet and 18 other intriguing grape varieties. In the early days of California winemaking, this type of field blend was simply referred to as “mixed blacks”.

As a result, both wines are deep, dense, generous, and feature complex flavors of wild berries, earth, spice, structure and balance. They are wines that taste great now or with some age, and can serve as great compliments to a movie that covers so much ground and nuances from the life of the original man in black.

To find out more about these wines check out the websites at www.ravenswood-wine.com or www.buckzin.com.

Purchase exclusive tours and film festival passes online. Some venues sell out early, so don’t hesitate to get your reservations for the 9th Annual Sonoma Valley Film Festival, Cinema Epicura.