Sour Grapes, a wine fraud documentary coming to Netflix
Sour Grapes, a new documentary about wine fraud, is being released on Netflix next month.
The movie centers on the case of convicted wine counterfeiter Rudy Kurniawan. In fact, the film’s two directors, Jerry Rothwell and Reuben Atlas, met at Kurniawan’s trial in Manhattan where they had ventured separately, each with an eye to making a documentary. In a phone interview, Rothwell said they quickly decided to join forces after speaking with witnesses who had testified in the trial.
One of those was Laurent Ponsot who welcomed them and the camera crew to his Burgundy domaine. Rothwell says that the film “a bit like a detective story.” Ponsot is positioned in the film as one of the detectives, trying to solve the mystery of fake bottles and the perona of Rudy Kurniawan. Others include the investigative team of Bill Koch as well as Maureen Downey and Don Cornwell.
One of the things about the film that is apparent from the trailer (above in case you get this via email and the youtube clip doesn’t render) is that they have real clips of Kurniawan walking and talking as opposed to those courtroom drawings that made him look like an alien life form (but courtroom sketches don’t do anybody favors, just ask Tom Brady). At one point he even jokes “I refill and put the cork back”! Rothwell says much of this footage came from another documentary about wine collectors shot in 2002 but that didn’t see the light of day.
Rothwell says that the Netflix came on board early, as well as ARTE, the Franco-German TV network. He says that he started the project just after Kurniawan was arrested but work and filming in earnest lasted about a year, which is fast. Working with Netflix streamlined it too and made for fewer headaches.
The Kurniawan story seems a perfect fit for TV or movies. The rights to a dramatic version of the story were sold in 2012.
On September 15th, 2016 at 10:56 am ,DMilford wrote:
Thanks for bringing this to my attention! I’m always looking for a good movie to enjoy, and ones that are based on true-life events are even more interesting. I’ll be on the lookout for ‘Sour Grapes’ on my Netflix.