Pairing the Right Wines with our Favorite Movies

We asked Doni Walker, special correspondent from the Sacre Bleu Wine Network, to pen a special blog on pairing wine and movies. We make conscious choices when we pair wine and food and to a similar extent we want to have a wine that fits the mood of whatever type of film we choose to watch. A big, bold Cabernet might not sit as well with The Notebook as say Sacre Bleu's CVM. Well, you get the idea.

Doni has her own thoughts about this and when you are fnished reading hers we welcome yours. Tell us what wine works best with your favorite film and why.

Pairing wine with food is fun; pairing wine with life is even better! And as entertainment is an important aspect of the life/work balance, I've picked out some of my all-time favorite movies and have here listed the wine's I'd grab to go with them.

In my opinion, the best movies are the ones that make you feel good, ones that often have the most likable characters and memorable, timeless quotes. This makes wine the perfect pairing for movies for all of the same reasons – it makes you feel good (the effect of the alcohol itself), the characteristics (flavors and tastes) are likable, and in vino veritas ("in wine, there is truth") has not become an oft-repeated adage for no reason!

With that, three of my absolute favorite, never-get-old, will-be-classics-in-my-book movies are these:

The Breakfast Club
Clueless
The Philadelphia Story (the 1940 romantic comedy with Cary Grant, James Stewart, and Katherine Hepburn, not to be mistaken for the 1993 Tom Hanks' drama, Philadelphia)


I think one of my all-time favorite movie scenes is the moment The Breakfast Club sees Ally Sheedy's Extreme Makeover - Molly Ringwald Edition. Watching barely-pubescent Emilio Estevez drooling over her is one of the cutest boy-meets-girl cheesy moments in all of Hollywood's cheesy moments. Almost as good as the part at the end when Molly Ringwald gives Judd Nelson her precious diamond earring in dramatic, forbidden lovers' fashion, and everyone walks off in the sunset to Simple Minds' "Don't You Forget About Me."

That being said, the best wine for The Breakfast Club would easily be a Beaujolais Nouveau. (Beaujolais is a historical province in France and is a region that produces a lot of wine, so wine with that name just means that it came from that region.) Nouveau (which means "new") is the first wine of the new harvest every year, and is released the third Thursday of November. It's ripe, young, and fruity - some critics even call it immature. Often misunderstood, but with so much potential, the barely-of-age Beaujolais Nouveau brings us all back to our own teenage years and seemed the natural choice for the quintessential coming-of-age movie.

Speaking of such movies, I might as well move on to Clueless next. This movie arrived at the pinnacle of my adolescent years (ok, fine, I was 12 when it came out in 1995, but like Cher, was a bit precocious…). This movie was seen by pre- and mid-teen girls everywhere as more than a fun take on SoCal life in the '90's, but as having some actual relevance in our own lives. Granted, growing up in suburban St. Paul was obviously a bit different than growing up in Beverly Hills, but I honestly believe that the milestones and emotions of puberty transcend location.

It took some thought to determine what the right wine would be for re-living Cher, Dionne, and Tai's high school antics and tribulations. One the one hand, it's a light-hearted, sometimes silly account of high school life and lexicon, so I didn't want to pick anything that would be taken too seriously. On the other hand, high school can be tough! I wanted something that would make the walk down memory lane a smooth one. With these thoughts in mind, the choice became clear – champagne. What better imbibe to enjoy with Clueless than a sparkling wine, which, like the movie's lead role is bubbly, fun-loving, optimistic, and sometimes a little precocious.

Next, we move onto a timeless, classic – The Philadelphia Story. This is an amazingly hilarious and witty romantic comedy, set in the 1940's, starring three of my absolute favorites – Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, and James Stewart. Watching those two gentlemen vie for the attention and affection of the upper-class Tracy Lord is one of the best and funniest ways I could ever imagine spending a couple of hours of my life.

With this one, I'm going a tiny bit more obvious and choosing something that was a part of the movie. The most obvious choice would be champagne because of its role in the best-written and funniest sequence of the film, but I already paired champagne with Clueless, so I went with Sherry instead. Sherry is a bit pretentious and snobby (ever watch Frasier? Kelsey Grammar's Frasier Crane was a big fan), and can be delicate but bites back a little.

It is a fortified wine; naturally dry because it's fortified after fermentation (I can't aptly explain that science, that's what Wikipedia told me). Any sweetness tasted is applied later. I'm not sure if the symbolism in this attribute as compared to Tracy Lord's personality was intentional, but it sure is clever. She's quite a bit rough around the edges to begin with, snobby, authoritative. The day before her wedding was planned, when a guest said to her younger sister, "I sure hope it doesn't rain tomorrow," her sister responded, "Oh, it won't. Tracy won't have it." By the end of the movie though, as she seeks out to determine which of these men is her true love, she's an absolute sap.

So put yourself in the shoes of Tracy Lord or her ex-husband (Cary Grant), C.K. Dexter Haven, don an important-sounding moniker like "Lord," or with all those extra initials, and grab a bottle of sherry and a fun little snifter to sip it from. This will surely whisk you back in time, and introduce words such as "yar" into your vocabulary.

I'm going to make one honorable mention, not because it's a favorite necessarily (though I did enjoy it!), but because it's a recent wine movie worth noting – Sideways.

With this movie, I could really go one of two ways. The instinct is to say to "find a good pinot [noir]" because of its relationship with the lead character, Miles (Paul Giamatti) in the movie. However, I'm not a wine snob, so I'd say to stick it to him and instead "grab a good Merlot." I've had my share of great Merlots and refuse to let a movie tell me they're not "quaffable!" So take that, Miles Raymond.

Actually, you know what? On second thought, grab both. He was right about Pinot Noirs – they're special. But it's a long movie. Two bottles may be a good idea!