Bottle Shock!

Or, Be Still My Heart.

Living in one of the greatest wine-producing areas of the world, and being great wine lovers, we belong to *ahem* a few wine clubs. Today, we decided to drive out to the Valley of the Moon, an enchanting little valley that separates Santa Rosa from the town of Sonoma.

Following a wonderful lunch at Cafe Citti in Kenwood, we stopped by Kunde, home of one of the oldest winemaking families in Sonoma County to pick up a shipment. Driving into the parking lot, we noticed a slew of trailers, many with cubbyhole rooms, each with its own door and we assumed that they'd brought in temporary housing for the farm workers who will soon be harvesting the grapes. But no.

As we approached the entry, we saw tons of people loitering around and some very large cameras and after speaking to one of the Kunde employees, we found out that they were filming the movie Bottle Shock, which will be released early in 2008. Bottle Shock is the story of the wine-making boom in the Napa Valley (just over the ridge from here), and the famous 1976 tasting in Paris when the when Napa Cabernet Sauvignons swept the French Bordeaux.

And who is the star of this film? Alan Rickman!

As I said, be still my heart.

We stayed and watched them do several "takes" of Rickman walking from the entrance of the cave (the actual cave where the wine is aged is bored into the side of the mountain behind the facility), and get into a beat-up pickup truck and start the engine. Hopefully these scenes will make it into the final cut.

Now its time for a nap!