PARIS, Feb. 2 (UPI) -- "Wine is dead," declared Aime Guibert firmly, as he gazed at rows of vines marching up his sloping vineyard, in France's Languedoc-Roussillon region.
Guibert's harsh assessment, softened slightly by the misty, rural backdrop of "la France profonde" is only one of many about the state of the world's wine industry, captured by a slightly shaky, digital camera in "Mondovino" -- a new documentary that has stirred controversy far beyond the borders of France.
Set for release in the United States in March, "Mondovino" spans three continents, giving voice to a quixotic assortment of characters: From Italian nobles and California's Mondavi family dynasty, to the all-powerful Maryland-based wine critic Robert Parker, to a motley assortment of smalltime growers in France, Italy and Latin America.
"The last thing I wanted to do is to make a film about wine -- and the snobbery and pretension that suffocates something that is at once infinitely simply and also infinitely beautiful and complex," said "Mondovino" director, Jonathan Nossiter, during an interview with foreign journalists in Paris.
Instead, Nossiter offers a largely negative view of the impact of globalization, distilled through the metaphor of wine.
The film and its message have resonated strongly in France, where "Mondovino" has become a box-office hit that has drawn more than 200,000 viewers since its local release, late last year.
The country's wine industry is facing a serious crisis, shaped by overproduction, falling consumption and stiff competition from "new world" wine producers in places like Chile, Australia and South America.
Thousands of wine growers protested across France in December, demanding government aid to offset their collapsing markets.
And although the French government announced this week more than $91 million in loans, tax breaks and other financial assistance to embattled growers -- along with a range of other measures, including a plan to distill millions of gallons of wine into alcohol -- critics call the measures insufficient.
Enter 43-year-old Nossiter, a sort of Jose Bove of the vineyards, who champions the little guy -- providing he's making good wine -- and speaks glowingly about the elusive notion of "terroir" or "sense of place" in shaping the individuality of each bottle.
Only Nossiter is no Gallic crop rampager, but a lanky, native Washingtonian who speaks several languages and whose work, paradoxically, has won the ire of some French wine heavyweights.
Nor does he like being pigeonholed.
Sipping frascati above a Paris wine store one chilly winter evening, a golden retriever at his feet, Nossiter ducked being compared to fellow movie director Michael Moore. He refused even to say which wine he liked best.
"It's a question that's unanswerable," he said. "It's like asking you who your favorite person is. Wine is the only thing on earth as complex as human beings."
Nossiter should know. A trained sommelier, he first began working in the wine business as a teenage waiter in Paris.
The son of Bernard Nossiter, a prominent journalist for the New York Times and Washington Post, Nossiter grew up largely overseas. He calls himself "a classic, deracinated Jew" and acknowledges that wine historically is a product of globalization.
The characters in Nossiter's documentary are a colorful crew. They include the obstinate de Montille family in Burgundy, which refuses to cede to a one-taste-fits-all wine future, and an impoverished Indian peasant in Argentina who nonetheless makes a delicious brew. They include Bordeaux chateau owners, and Maryland-based wine guru Robert Parker.
They also include southern French grower Guibert who, despite his bleak prognosis of the wine industry, nonetheless successfully fought the Mondavi wine company, preventing it from setting up business in his southern French region.
While Nossiter acknowledges transnational companies have improved the quality and accessibility of affordable wine around the world, it's not hard to see where his loyalties lie.
Passionate growers like the Montilles, dedicated to wine's individuality, are the heroes. Large transnationals -- companies and individuals with international clout -- are not.
"Mondovino" is hardly Nossiter's first movie. His other work includes "Sunday," which earned best film and screenplay awards at the Sundance Festival, and "Resident Alien," in 1991, starring John Hurt and Sting among others.
But his latest production is clearly a labor of love against the odds. Even his Hollywood agent dumped him.
"He thought I was throwing my career away" by making a low-budget documentary rather than a higher budget fiction movie, Nossiter said.
He paused. "I actually thought he was partially right" at the time, he added.
So far, however, "Mondovino" has amassed largely positive reviews. France's Liberation newspaper, for example, described it as "a sensational investigation-report on the globalization of the wine culture."
And alongside kudos in Cannes last year, "Mondovino" separately won a tongue-in-cheek top-dog award for its large number of canine characters. Parker, whose own farting bulldogs were prominently on screen, sent Nossiter a warm note.
But "Mondovino" has not seduced everyone.
Topping the disgruntled list is world-renowned wine consultant Michel Rolland, who seems to smirk throughout the movie as he advises clients by cell phone on oxygenating their wine, as he is chauffeur driven to various appointments.
Rolland slammed his portrayal, and Nossiter movie in general in remarks to Liberation. Powerful members of the Bordeaux wine industry and press are apparently not thrilled with the documentary either.
While describing Rolland as someone he genuinely liked, Nossiter remains unapologetic about his work.
"They have only themselves to blame" he says of his critics in the documentary, adding the characters in "Mondovino" essentially wrote their own dialogue.
Asked to offer his two centimes on France's embattled winegrowers, Nossiter makes a fresh pitch for individuality in a globalized world.
"If the French try and compete with mass market ... with the Australians, the Americans, the Chileans and the South Africans, they are dead in the water," he said.
