By Robert Camuto for WineSpectator.com
What would a top sommelier do if he lost his palate? That premise is the foundation of a new film attracting international attention. El Camino Del Vino (in English, “The Ways of Wine”) is a promising Argentinean drama making the round of International Film Festivals, with plans for an American release sometime this year.
El Camino is the directorial debut of 30-year-old filmmaker and wine lover Nicolás Carreras and stars Miami-based sommelier and wine educator Charlie Arturaola. His co-stars are a cast of wine-and-food pros playing themselves, including Bordeaux enologist Michel Rolland, sommelier Andreas Larsson (named best sommelier in the world in 2007 by the Association de la Sommellerie Internationale), chef Donato de Santis (former personal cook for Gianni Versace) and some of the Mendoza wine region’s more influential winemakers, including Susana Balbo, Raul Bianchi and Jean Bousquet.
The storyline starts with a frightening prospect for a wine taster—Arturaola shows up in Mendoza to participate in a food-and-wine conference only to discover that he has mysteriously lost his sense of taste and smell. After Rolland counsels him to reconnect with the terroir and wines of Mendoza, Arturaola begins a pilgrimage of working in the vineyards, tasting and drinking. Ultimately his journey brings he and his wife, wine broker Pandora Anwyl, to his birthplace in Montevideo, Uruguay, to rediscover himself along with his first wine memories.
“Charlie loses his palate,” Arturaola told Wine Spectator in an interview at Berlin’s International Film Festival in February. “And to find it, he goes searching for his..Read full article
There are two movie trailers: one in English, and one in Spanish
