If you’re reading this, your ears perk up when you hear “Do you drink wine?” in a TV show or movie. In this case it is said in episode 1 of the new Netflix series The Gentlemen, created by Guy Ritchie.
Inspired by the success of the 2019 film of the same name and creator, the show begins at a British military checkpoint on the border of Turkey and Syria. The man in charge, Edward Horniman (Theo James), is pulled off duty when his father becomes gravely ill. Through the magic of great wealth and status he is whisked home, in his case a 16th century country estate. If you’ve seen other Ritchie works, you know what to expect: fast pacing, over-the-top characters, dubious-at-best choices and slapstick, sometimes combined with intense violence.
Love serious on-screen wine cameos? Check out our editors' favorite film and TV wine scenes!
At the reading of his father's will, Horniman’s older brother Freddy, a dissolute aristo played with great glee by Daniel Ings, is passed over as primary heir, and so Edward is made Duke of Halstead and placed in charge of the estate. The main seeds at the beginning are Freddy’s staggering debt and some peculiarities in the family’s finances.
The series will take Edward from the upper echelons of society to a scouser using his fish mongering as a cover for his cocaine business; there will be an underground weed farm and Adolph Hitler’s testicle. And we are not spoiling the surprise when we say that if you make a man dance while wearing a chicken suit, bad things are going to happen. In this show, anything that can go wrong does.
As for the aforementioned inquiry into wine appreciation, the question is posed by Stanley Johnston, played with cool confidence and sparkle by Giancarlo Esposito, who in this case is a bit more Gus Fring in Breaking Bad (also a wine lover) than Do the Right Thing's Bugginout.
Johnston is a wealthy American who wants to buy Halstead Manor and wrangles a meeting with Horniman at a private club in London. Over a billiards table, he asks “Do you drink wine?” and they retire to another room where an assistant carefully decants a bottle that sharp-eyed readers will identify as Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. (Check out my colleague Bruce Sanderson's recent tasting of the 2021 DRCs for a glimpse at the price of prestige pours like that.)
All this happens while Johnston makes his pitch, sliding a check over to Horniman and coolly saying things like, “Value is derived from what someone’s willing to pay for something. If I say it’s worth that much, it’s worth it. At least to me.”
Horniman decides not to sell, and the wine is served.
Rarely is wine service put so front and center. Here it is shown being poured through a paper filter into a decanter and then, well, let’s let Johnston explain: “I hope you don’t disapprove in the way I prefer my wine presented. In breaking with tradition, I like to decant and clean the liquid, clear the bottle of any sediment, then return the wine so it can be enjoyed in its original housing. Speaking of housing: I’m prepared to go farther north of that number.”
The camera lingers for a moment on the bottle, and Horniman says, “ah, the DRC 2002.” Johnston asks if he's a fan of DRC, and he replies, “I’m more of a Bordeaux man, myself, but my father was all about Burgundy. He collected the DRC. Have you ever tried an ‘82?”
Johnston’s eyes light up as on-screen text explains that a single bottle is worth £20,000 and there are only 6 cases of it. Johnston cites that last number, and Horniman corrects him: “Eight actually. Two belong to the estate. One belongs to the archduke of Moldova, and the rest … well, they’re in our cellar … along with 2 cases of the ‘45.” Additional text on screen reports that the last time a case of 1945 DRC was sold, it fetched £1.2 million. (IRL, two bottles of 1945 DRC Romanée-Conti sold for about a half-mil each at Sothebys' in 2018; check out The 15 Most Expensive Wines Ever Sold if you're looking for more power lunch wines.)
Johnston says, “If you won’t allow me to buy the house, please allow me to buy the wine. I promise I’ll be very generous.” In the next shot, Horniman is at Halstead, helping to load the wine onto Johnston’s helicopter.
I ran into senior editor and Burgundy taster Bruce Sanderson here in the hallways at WSHQ and I asked if he’d seen the show. He had, and loved it, as did I. We talked about it for a bit, and I asked if he'd spotted any errors in the wine scene.
“Yes, the coffee filter. I’d never do that,” Sanderson said. I also noticed that the capsule is trimmed above rather than below the lip, and that Johnston sniffs the cork. Quibbles, but still. In the end, though, it's great to see a show pay such detailed attention to a thing we love, and use it to drive character.
And to suggest that when it comes to the world's most coveted red Burgundies, every Bordeaux man has his price.
