'Bottle Shock' filming in Wine Country, one of two movies planned that uses historic Paris blind tasting as a backdrop

A beautiful college intern racing back with news about seemingly spoiled wine that's instead destined to shock the world runs out of gas and resorts to exposing her breasts to passing cars to get a ride.

The scene, filmed Tuesday near Sonoma, is one of the cinematic touches director Randall Miller is making in "Bottle Shock," the story of Chateau Montelena winery and the momentous 1976 Paris blind tasting that put Northern California's wine on the map.

Cameras began rolling last week and will continue at locations in Napa and Sonoma counties over the next month.

"You have to create drama or basically you're telling a docu-drama," the director said Tuesday over lunch at Buena Vista Carneros, not far from where the hitchhiking scene was filmed. "You have to take certain license."

Critics, including those at work on a competing film about the same competition, say Miller goes too far.

For example, they dispute that bottle shock, a condition that temporarily mutes the taste of wine, ever happened to Jim Barrett's famed chardonnay. Barrett is played by actor Bill Pullman.

And the beautiful intern named Sam, played by Rachael Taylor, didn't exist. She merely provides a love interest for Barrett's son Bo (Chris Pine) -- and the ability to stop traffic.

Perhaps most importantly, many of the scenes depicting Napa County are really Sonoma County. Producer Brenda Lhormer said they were chosen, in part, because they looked more like Napa, circa the 1970s.

Both the Jack London Lodge in Glen Ellen and the Swiss Hotel in Sonoma will figure in the movie. Scenes also were filmed in downtown Santa Rosa and in the Carneros region of Sonoma.

Sonoma Valley vineyard owner Robert Mark Kamen, who is writing the screenplay for the other movie based on the book "Judgment of Paris" by George Taber, said "Bottle Shock" distorts history and fails to credit the real winemaker, Mike Grgich.

Kamen's movie, which focuses on Stag's Leap Wine Cellars' contribution to the Paris tasting, is due to begin filming in the spring, he said.

"I feel they are taking an event that had a profound effect on the future of California wine -- of all wine in the world -- and they are diminishing it to this not very funny, not very romantic little movie," Kamen said.

"Bottle Shock" also stars Alan Rickman as the English wine merchant who arranges the contest and Freddy Rodriguez, as an assistant to Grgich, who made the 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay that beat out French wines in the blind tasting in Paris.

Grgich's character is seen in the movie but has no lines.

He declined to comment through a spokeswoman. Barrett also declined through a spokesman to comment.

Lhormer said her movie doesn't claim to be a recital of historical fact. It is simply a slice of that seminal year, she said.

"We're telling a different story," Lhormer said. "I think it's a different tone."

The film gets its name from a phenomenon that sometimes occurs after bottling or when wines are shaken during travel.

In the script, Barrett discovers his wine has turned brown and prepares to bail out of the business by dumping the whole batch on a local bartender played by Eliza Dushku. Barrett then goes to San Francisco to sever ties with the wine business forever.

But a UC Davis professor assures Bo and Sam the condition is temporary. The wine will return to its golden color. On their way to tell the old man, their truck runs out of gas.

According to the script, Sam hails passing cars by pulling up her shirt.

The wine is saved when the two are picked up by a police officer.

Crews set up Tuesday along Ramal Road in the Carneros region to film actors Pine and Taylor in that scene.

On Monday, a downtown Santa Rosa office building was the location of filming. Extras paced the sidewalk wearing wide-lapeled suits and mutton-chop sideburns from the era.

Casting officials said period cars and trucks still are needed, along with dozens more extras to play vineyard workers and winemakers.

"It's hard to get stuff from the 1970s," said Scott DeGrave of San Anselmo, who played an extra in a boardroom scene.

Filming will move to a Sonoma set today and to Calistoga Thursday. Scenes will be filmed at Chateau Montelena through the weekend.

You can reach Staff Writer Paul Payne at 762-7297 or paul.payne@pressdemocrat.com.