The 97th Academy Awards take place on March 3rd in Hollywood with awards honoring the best movies of 2024 in 23 categories. Where’s the link between five of the “Best Picture” nominees and wine? Westgarth Wines took a sip and found out!

Anora, a young Russian-speaking Brooklyn woman working in the red-light industry steps into a modern-day fairytale when she weds Vanya, the son of a Moscow oligarch. When the news reaches his outraged parents in Russia, the marriage is threatened as they travel to New York, determined to annul the marriage.

So, what do parents battling to annul a marriage they regard as unpropitious to protect their family interests and the wine world have in common? The answer is found in a region in northern France! Champagne is famous for wasting no time in its tenacious battle to guarantee that its appellation name is never used elsewhere for wine - or anything else for that matter. Comité Champagne, the trade association that acts to protect the Champagne designation, spends more than a million dollars annually to ensure there’s no misuse of the appellation’s name.

In 2024, the committee won a landmark case in China against a perfume producer that marketed its products as “Champagne Life” and it’s been known to destroy bottles of soda and beer that used its precious name. Nobody begrudges Champagne for its actions though - the most iconic sparkling wine on the planet deserves all the protection it can get. Whether anyone has the nerve to fight tooth and nail against Champagne the way Anora does against her in-laws remains to be seen!

An innovative architect flees from post-war Europe for a new life in America where he plans to revive his career and marriage. After settling in Pennsylvania, an influential industrialist identifies his unique talent, opening professional doors and changing the course of his life.

The name “The Brutalist” reflects the essence of an architectural style (Brutalism) emerging after World War II that embraced functionality rather than ornamentation. The philosophy of this widespread school of architecture was to allow the structural essence of a building to shine through. This sounds uncannily like the aims of terroir-focused winemakers seeking an authentic expression of place in their wines. Ambient yeasts, minimal intervention, and shunning fining and filtration are just a few winemaking approaches that support a wine’s true character to reveal itself.  

It’s the early 1960s and 19-year-old Bob Dylan has just arrived in New York with a guitar and a visionary talent that will transform American music. In his rise to fame, his growing frustration with the folk music scene drives him to make a bold move that could make or break his career.

The pivotal event of the film is Dylan’s 1965 performance at the Newport Folk Festival on Rhode Island. The link with the juice of the grape? In this very spot, King Charles II of England encouraged early colonists in the 1660s to plant vines, and viticulture expanded steadily until Prohibition of the 1920s and 30s. A decade after Dylan’s Newport fame, Rhode Island, along with much vineland around America, launched its modern chapter with the country’s wine carving an international niche for itself. Around 20 years after Dylan’s groundbreaking performance, the Southeastern New England American Viticultural Area (AVA) was established, covering Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Today, Chardonnay, Riesling, Vidal, and Pinot Noir are among the AVA’s most important grapes but what was on the menu at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival that inspired “A Complete Unknown”? If the original event festival program is anything to go by…beer and steak!

Cardinal Lawrence is presiding over one of the world's most ancient, secretive, and ritualistic events: the selection of a new pope. Surrounded by powerful religious leaders in the corridors of the Vatican, he discovers a trail of secrets that could undermine the bedrock of the Roman Catholic Church.

As with the election of a new Supreme Pontiff, we find a plethora of hallowed mores in the world of wine - from the esoteric practice of biodynamic viticulture to the revered intricate hierarchy of Bordeaux Cru Classés. But perhaps the most ritualistic activity in modern-day wine culture is the Blind Tasting! The providence of its wines is top-secret, its participants have rarefied palates, and its outcomes are exalted. While the landmark 1976 “Judgment of Paris” (where California wines trounced French classics) is the most famous blind tasting, the first recorded such degustation dates to 1780 when a French politician and foodie promoted non-biased tasting methods. Whether in the world of Conclave or the tasting room, oh wouldn’t our world be a poorer place without rites and rituals?

A disillusioned Mexican lawyer obliged to fight for shady characters in equally shady cases, is mysteriously hired for an unusual brief: helping a notorious cartel chief to disappear from his nefarious life by transitioning into a woman.

Predominantly Spanish-language movie “Emilia Pérez” is a Hollywood favorite landing 13 nominations. The most-nominated non-English language film of all time it has, nevertheless, not gone down so well in Mexico where it’s set. Reactions range from criticism that it portrays the country as a stereotypically crime-ridden land to accusations that it has downplayed the nation’s serious problem of drug cartel missing persons. Don’t worry Mexico: We know there’s more to you than the depravity portrayed in this much-lauded movie, and we only have to look to Vitis vinifera to find it! Mexico has a flourishing wine scene with Valle de Guadalupe in northwestern Baja California leading several thriving wine regions. A Mediterranean climate cooled by ocean breezes and mountain altitudes produces black and white Bordeaux varietals alongside Grenache, Tempranillo, Syrah, Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay, and Viognier. Wine tourism is prospering, with tastings, vineyard tours, and festivals attracting curious visitors, and the country boasts its fair share of 90-point plus wines rated by top critics. Salud Mexico!

Want to read more? Take a look at some of our other blogs:

• • The 20th century abstract art labels of Mouton Rothschild
  • The music vintages of Pichon Comtesse
  • Wine and fashion: decisions of the senses