Last night I watched Somm, which is a documentary that follows three sommeliers training for their Master Sommelier exam. Besides pounding Wild Vines in college, usually out of the bottle, but occasionally in a plastic cup stolen from the dining hall, I have zero experience (or interest) in wine. But the guys chronicled in this film are so sweet, and the exam so surprisingly grueling (out of 150 entrants in the documented year, 6 pass,) that the completely unrelatable becomes riveting. I always associated wine tasting with the pretentious and/or fannypack wearing tourists in Napa, but these dudes are young, seemingly normal (if you discount the whole sommelier thing) and surprisingly bangable. They seem like your college roommates, if your college roommates were now slaying flashcards to memorize the 3,000+ varieties of Old World grapes, or deducing the soil conditions and precise year of production from a single swish of Burgundy. Seriously, put this on, watch the first tasting (<10 minutes in,) and tell me you don’t want to shit your pants in awe.
Like life, if you want to make a sweeping-ass metaphor, Somm doesn’t turn out perfectly, but it does turn out contentedly. Or in more practical Netflix terms, this is a safe film to watch before you go to bed. It will have you on the edge of your seat (seriously, I was on the verge of tears) but it won’t have you cursing God for life’s injustice. Somm isn’t going to make me want to take up wine-drinking anytime soon, either casually or competitively. But it does make me want to make it rain on the sommelier at my next social function, and offer them a drink, because apparently they’re the ones who need it.
Somm is on Netflix Instant, iTunes, and YouTube
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