In the years since I launched the Sideways Wine Club (now Dave the Wine Merchant), it turns out the 2004 movie 'Sideways' has become a full-blown cult classic among wine enthusiasts. This humble, low-budget film put Santa Barbara County on the world's wine maps while simultaneously hastening the demise of Merlot and the rise of Pinot!
It's easy to spot fans of the film by their ready access to favorite quotes from the movie. After re-watching Sideways recently, I wrote down some of my favorite wine-soaked quotes. Here are some of my favorites:
Jack: If they want to drink Merlot, we're drinking Merlot.
Miles Raymond: No, if anyone orders Merlot, I'm leaving. I am NOT drinking any f***ing Merlot!
Jack: Mies, did you drink and dial?
Maya: What's the title?
Miles Raymond: The Day After Yesterday.
Maya: Oh… You mean today?
Jack: Here's what I'm thinking: you and me, we move up here, we buy a vineyard. You design the wine; I'll handle the business side. You get inspired, maybe write another novel, one that can sell.
Miles Raymond: Oh, my God. No, no.
Miles Raymond: Quaffable, but uh… far from transcendent.
Miles Raymond: This weekend is not about me. It is about you. I'm gonna show you a good time. We're gonna drink a lot of good wine. We're gonna play some golf. We're gonna eat some great food and enjoy the scenery and we are going to send you off in style, mon frere.
Jack: And get your bone smooched.
Jack: Speak for yourself. I get chicks lookin' at me all the time. All ages.
Miles Raymond: Well, it's not worth it. You pay too big a price. It's never free.
Jack: You need to get laid, Miles. You know what? That's going to be my best man gift to you this week… I'm not gonna get you a gift certificate or a pen knife or any of that other horse sh*t.
Miles Raymond: I'd rather have a knife.
Miles Raymond: Come on, man. You know. Hemingway, Sexton, Plath, Woolf. You can't kill yourself before you're even published.
Jack: What about the guy who wrote Confederacy of Dunces? He killed himself before he was published. Look how famous he is.
Miles Raymond: Thanks.
Jack: Just don't give up, alright? You're gonna make it.
Miles Raymond: Half my life is over and I have nothing to show for it. Nothing. I'am thumbprint on the window of a skyscraper. I'm a smudge of excrement on a tissue surging out to sea with a million tons of raw sewage.
Jack: See? Right there. Just what you just said. That is beautiful. 'A smudge of excrement… surging out to sea.' I could never write that.
Miles Raymond: Neither could I, actually. I think it's Bukowsky.
Miles Raymond: Citrus, passion fruit, just the faintest soupÁon of asparagus, and, like, a nutty Edam cheese.
Jack: Wow, you're getting all of that?
Miles Raymond: …Are you chewing gum?
Miles Raymond: Why didn't I get hurt?
Jack: You were wearing your seatbelt.
Maya: I started to appreciate the life of wine, that it's a living thing, that it connects you more to life. I like to think about what was going on the year the grapes were growing. I like the think about how the sun was shining that summer and what the weather was like. I think about all those people who tended and picked the grapes. And if it's an old wine, how many of them must be dead by now. I love how wine continues to evolve, how if I open a bottle the wine will taste different than if I had uncorked it on any other day, or at any other moment. A bottle of wine is like life itself - it grows up, evolves and gains complexity. Then it tastes so f***ing good.
Maya: So why are you so into Pinots? They’re like a thing with you.
Miles: “It’s a hard grape to grow, as you know. It’s thin-skinned, temperamental. It’s not a survivor like Cabernet that can grow anywhere and thrive even when neglected. Pinot needs constant care and attention, you know? And in fact it can only grow in these really specific, little, tucked away corners of the world. And, and only the most patient and nurturing of growers can do it, really. Only somebody who really takes the time… to understand Pinot’s potential… can then coax it into its fullest expression.”
Maya: ‘Seriously, the ’61 Cheval Blanc is peaking… it might be too late already. What are you waiting for?’
Miles: ‘I don’t know, a special occasion. With the right person.’
Maya: ‘The day you open a ’61 Cheval Blanc, that’s the special occasion.’
Stephanie: I need to be spanked!