Bordeaux On Screen

Bordeaux wines have appeared in a number of films and books.
A few of them include:
 
The new Sebastian Faulk James Bond novel, Devil May Care, has Bond drinking Chateau Batailley, the Pauillac fifth growth. He is drinking the 1958 in Paris, talking to a French detective called Mathis.  In the book, Mathis says, 'It's a fifth growth... it comes from a few metres west of Latour, but it's a fraction of the price. Try it.'

It's mentioned a few times throughout the text, even in the last scene when he 'draws back the cork of a Chateau Batailley' before seducing his latest conquest.

I guess the owner, Philippe Casteja (see his profile here), must be a pretty happy man.

Good profile of the chateau here:

http://www.thewinedoctor.com/bordeaux/batailley.shtml

xx

 
Of course Saint Emilion's Chateau Angelus is drunk by Bond on the train with Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale.

The story goes that when de Bouard was approached by producer Barbara Broccolli for some bottles, he found they weren't happy with anything less than the best.

'I considered giving the Broccollis the 1990. But they said ”you do realise James Bond has a taste for at least the '82?“'

xx

Chateau Angelus also made it into La Vie en Rose, when Edith Piaf and her boyfriend, boxer Marcel Cerdan, drank a bottle in a restaurant in New York.

There is in fact a long relationship between Chateau Angelus and cinema - in recent years, a bottle of the wine has appeared in numerous French and international films. Besides the two mentioned above, it was in Dialogue avec Mon Jardinier (2007, with Daniel Auteuil), Albert est Mechant (2004, with Michel Serrault) and this year two French films - Ca se Soigne and Passe-Passe.
 

Hubert de Bouard ascribes this to the distinctive yellow label, with its bell. 'It is easily recognisable, so when it appears on the big screen, often during a restaurant scene, in shows the viewer that the character is a true wine lover.'