Blood Of The Vines - C'est Paree

Pairing wine with movies!  See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell.  This week, it’s a virtual trip to France… or at least Texas.  Check your tickets before departing so you'll know how to respond when someone asks who got your vote in the election.

Jazz fans should remember 1961's Paris Blues, starring Sidney Poitier and Paul Newman.  Guest shots by Louis Armstrong and a soundtrack headed up by the Duke Ellington Orchestra lend strong jazz cred to the film.  The story - of two expat jazzmen in Paris - compares race relations in the U.S. with the more freewheeling French way.  Early drafts of the script reportedly focused on an interracial relationship, but then steered away from that angle, prompting Poitier to say later that he felt the studio "chickened out."  Maybe they chickened out, maybe they were just jive turkeys.  In the end, no one gets the girls.

What better to pair with a swingin', be-boppin' movie like Paris Blues than something from Jazz Cellars, due east of Lodi in the Sierra Foothills community of Murphys.  They have single-vineyard Grenache, Syrah and Zinfandel in the $35 range.

The 1984 Wim Wenders film, Paris, Texas, stars Harry Dean Stanton, Dean Stockwell and Nastassja Kinski.  Some scenes in the movie were shot in my home town of Port Arthur, Texas.  While Stanton and Stockwell fit well into the downtown surroundings, the locals got a pretty good buzz going from having Nastassja Kinski around.  She was definitely not your typical Texas gal.

After watching Stanton wander wordlessly through the dusty Texas backroads, you're going to want something wet to whistle down your throat pipe.  Try a New Zealand wine, Alexander Dusty Road Pinot Noir.  It's fruity, it's juicy and it's only $27.

The 1972 Bernardo Bertolucci film, Last Tango in Paris, was originally rated X due to its themes of sexual violence.  I feel that people who find Marlon Brando's sexual violence interesting fall into the category of "it takes all kinds."  After viewing one notorious scene, you'll never see butter the same way again.  The score by Gato Barbieri is a real treat.

JaM Cellars has a California Chardonnay called Butter, so let's pair that with Last Tango and avert our eyes.  Get the full Butter experience - well, the wine part, at least - for $16.

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