The ‘Sideways’ Revolution: How a Single Joke Upended the Wine World

Alexander Payne had modest expectations for Sideways when his unassuming indie about an antic-filled buddy road trip through idyllic California wine country hit theaters in the fall of 2004. With an estimated budget of $16 million, the film wound up raking in more than $100 million worldwide and an Academy Award for best adapted screenplay — in addition to nominations for best picture, best director and best supporting actor (Thomas Haden Church) and actress (Virginia Madsen). 

“As we were making Sideways, I thought it was just a nice little comedy and had no idea that it would ever stand the test of time,” says Payne. “And the merlot line that supposedly changed the wine industry? Well, it was just a joke, one single line in a movie. Who could have ever predicted that?”

The line in question comes about halfway into the movie. Miles, the pinot noir fanatic played by a typically agitated Paul Giamatti, and his about-to-be-married friend Jack (Church) argue outside a Los Olivos restaurant in which their beguiling new acquaintances Maya (Madsen) and Stephanie (Sandra Oh) await. “If anyone orders merlot, I’m leaving,” Miles barks. “I am not drinking any fucking merlot!” 

Those 13 words would have an oracular effect, say sommeliers and industry experts, causing sales of merlot wines to plummet, to the benefit of Miles’ preferred varietal. This dynamic — measured in a 2009 Sonoma State University study that attributes it directly to the movie — was felt in winemaking regions across the globe, but especially in Santa Barbara County, where the film was shot. 

As suddenly as audiences abandoned Margo Channing for Eve Harrington in All About Eve, vintners and restaurateurs turned their attention from the bold merlot to the delicate pinot grape, the new star of the wine industry. Winemaker Doug Margerum, who owned The Wine Cask in Santa Barbara when Sideways was released, had a front-row seat. “We were having a hard time selling pinot then, but after the film came out, everyone wanted to drink it and sales skyrocketed,” he says. “We went from having one page of pinots on the wine list to three.”

The film “blew up the entire area, and tons of pinot started being planted,” says James Sparks, winemaker for Spear and Liquid Farm in the Santa Ynez Valley, the principal setting for the movie, about two and a half hours from Los Angeles. The valley’s own prized Santa Rita Hills viticultural area happens to be a prime location for growing award-winning pinot. “We are very unique in that the mountains run east-west and we have a cool characteristic from the ocean, which is ideal for growing pinot,” he says. 

Winemaker Kathy Joseph, of Santa Rita Hills’ Fiddlehead Cellars, credits the sudden popularity of the grape to the film’s lyricism about it. “I think people learned about pinot on a more spiritual level after the movie,” she says. “It gave them permission to start drinking more of it because it was described so elegantly, you wanted to be a part of that, and part of the romance of the wine becomes the romance of the region.” 

Miles expresses his love of pinot most fully in a soulful conversation with Maya, rhapsodizing about the varietal in anthropomorphic terms: “It’s a hard grape to grow. It’s thin-skinned, temperamental, ripens early. You know, it’s not a survivor like cabernet … No, pinot needs constant care and attention … and, I mean, its flavors are just the most haunting and brilliant and thrilling and subtle and ancient on the planet.” 

This ode to pinot owes a debt to the novel the film was based on. Miles is effectively the alter ego of Sideways author Rex Pickett, who still swoons over pinot. “I love its femininity and range of expression,” says Pickett. “Pinot inspires poetry and lyricism. It’s a bottomless ocean of mystery.”

While pinot plantings flourished in the wake of the movie’s release, merlot was ripped out — a not-unwelcome development for some of the area’s vintners. “The film had a massive impact on merlot,” says master sommelier Carlton McCoy, CEO of Lawrence Wine Estates. “In many ways, it was necessary. Merlot was planted in vineyards where it should not have been. This led to overplantings. After the film, growers planted less of it.”

No winemaking region felt the Sideways effect more than the Santa Ynez Valley, whose under-the-radar wines were propelled to star status. “When I would drive up while writing the book and even during the time of filming, it was undiscovered and rural and there was nothing high-end,” recalls Pickett. One of the winemaking pioneers of the region, fittingly, was actor Fess Parker, known for starring as Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone in the ’50s and ’60s. Parker established Fess Parker Winery, which — under a fictional name — served as the backdrop for the film’s climax, in which Miles guzzles from a spit bucket and then dumps the gallons of backwash on himself. Parker, who died in 2010, delighted in the business and press attention that followed the film’s release, vindicating his early bet on Santa Ynez. “He was extremely bullish on Santa Barbara County as a growing region and as a destination for hospitality,” says his daughter Ashley Parker Snider, “so those interviews allowed him to brag on the area a bit.”

If you were fortunate enough to have your wine or business featured in the film, it was a game-changer. Joseph’s Fiddlehead Cellars, which was prominently name-checked during a scene filmed at Los Olivos Wine Merchant & Cafe, got swept up into the frenzy. “The impact of Sideways on my brand and the Santa Ynez Valley in general was incredible,” says Joseph. “It’s like the movie came out yesterday. People still buy the wine and come to visit all the time because of the Sideways connection.” 

The region has experienced significant growth over the past 20 years. “When Sideways was being filmed, we probably had around 100 wineries in the Santa Barbara wine country,” says Alison Laslett, CEO of Santa Barbara Vintners, a nonprofit organization that promotes the county as a leader in grape growing and winemaking. “Twenty years later, we now have well over 300 labels and around 75 different varieties.” 

New restaurants, several of them with Michelin recognition, flocked to the region, joining the Sideways-anointed standbys like The Hitching Post and Solvang Restaurant. Tasting rooms, meanwhile, exploded. 

In 2004, there were just a few perched in the quaint town of Los Olivos, and none in the Danish-inspired village of Solvang, long an epicenter of bakeries and tchotchke shops. “Tastings were free and there were barely any customers back then,” says Pickett. Today, you’ll find more than 30 of them, and fees range from $20 to $50. “For me, it’s the marriage of wine and the rural, magical beauty of Santa Ynez Valley,” adds Pickett, the region’s poet laureate. “Tasting rooms inspire and evoke conversation and bring people together.” 

Madsen had been visiting Santa Ynez Valley for many years before co-starring in the film and remains enamored with the area. “I didn’t know anything about wine tasting back then, but it was always my sanctuary and I have a personal connection there,” she tells THR. “There was a while I couldn’t go because all those family-owned businesses were overwhelmed with success after the film and suddenly there were tour buses and bridal showers, but it didn’t ruin the valley. It’s grown and changed with success, but it’s so warm and welcoming and you still feel at home. There is something enchanting about that place. Life really slows down there.” 

Payne, for his part, believes that in capturing the charm of the region, he may have forever transformed it. “Every time I go, I feel more and more like a stranger in a strange land — all those new wineries, hotels and restaurants,” he says. “When I was there, everything was about joy, not commerce and tourism.”

Giamatti never shared his character’s obsession. “I had virtually no knowledge of wine before the movie and didn’t drink it much, and I still don’t know diddly about it and don’t drink it at all now,” he tells THR. “I’m not even sure what wine is what color. I feel badly because I disappoint fans and sommeliers all the time. I like Guinness and tequila. Not together, of course. Separately.” 

He, too, was recently in town and also wonders about the effects of the film’s success. “I was sad to see Pea Soup Andersen’s in Buellton was gone, but I was amazed by everything that has popped up in the interim,” he adds. “Changing the place so dramatically through making a film there is not something I ever imagined happening. I hope it’s been good for the folks who live there.”

Some locals were wary about participating in the first place. According to Pickett, a few businesses that were set to be featured in Sideways pulled out at the eleventh hour. Pickett says that Frank Ostini, owner of The Hitching Post, “got ahold of the screenplay and thought it would be bad for the area, so he called everyone together and tried to shut down the film.” Several wineries made the final decision not to participate. In a last-minute change of heart, however, Ostini opted back in, and The Hitching Post ended up serving as one of the film’s most memorable shooting locations and is now an essential destination on the wine circuit. 

While numerous vintners whose wines weren’t even featured in the film latched on to the coattails and rode the wave to a pinot bonanza, not everyone benefited from the liquid gold rush. Lane Tanner, another pioneering pinot winemaker who was married to Ostini prior to the film, had a vastly different experience after Sideways. “The movie screwed up my life so badly you wouldn’t believe it,” she says. “It was fabulous for the people who were shown in the movie — you couldn’t have had any better press — but it wasn’t great for all of us.” Demand for pinot grew faster than the supply, and the grapes became unaffordable for winemakers like Tanner. “Everyone decided they wanted to make pinot from Santa Barbara County after the movie, which made our grapes so expensive. Pinot is such a sensitive grape: only grows in certain areas, and needs that coastal influence — it’s very hard to make,” Tanner adds, echoing Miles’ soliloquy. “If you even look at pinot wrong while it’s fermenting, it can go bad. Three years later, everyone who was making cab was making pinot and they realized they couldn’t make pinot, so they were dumping it and basically giving it away.”

And even though pinot still reigns as the wine industry’s crown jewel, McCoy believes a correction is necessary. “At this point, pinot noir is overplanted in areas that are far too hot for the grape,” he says. “This has produced a large quantity that tastes nothing like pinot noir and has created a market that has normalized a style of pinot noir that has no varietal character. There will be a reckoning soon in pinot noir plantings, as [there was] for merlot.”

McCoy believes merlot is poised for a comeback — “be it a slow comeback,” he adds. “It’s easier to sell today than it was 10 years ago. I personally love a vibrant and elegant merlot. These often come from Coombsville, Carneros and the mountain appellations.”

Rebecca Phillips, owner of Buvette and Vintage Wine Bars in the San Fernando Valley, calls merlot “arguably one of the best grapes in the world” and believes the Sideways effect in fact stems from a misunderstanding.

“Within the context of the story, Miles never said merlot was a bad wine or a bad grape,” she notes. “Merlot has a lot of the same characteristics as cabernet sauvignon, so why throw the baby out with the bathwater? Sadly, filmgoers walked away from the film thinking they shouldn’t drink it, but true wine connoisseurs didn’t give up on their old-world merlots.” 

Margerum concurs: “The irony of the whole movie is that Miles is drinking Cheval Blanc at the end, which is primarily merlot,” says the winemaker of the final scene, in which Miles pairs a 1961 vintage of the exalted Bordeaux blend (in a Styrofoam cup) with a fast-food burger. “Merlot also happens to grow well in Santa Barbara County because it needs a colder climate, which is what we have.”

The Sideways director himself also is a fan. “I’ve always liked merlot,” says Payne. “The good ones, anyway — and at our 20th anniversary celebrations this autumn, I’m insisting we pour only merlot.” Yet he also shared a story about making and bottling his own pinot with a few friends in a Santa Monica apartment 15 years ago that’s “still drinking really nicely right now.”

Beyond its role in the great pinot-merlot saga, Sideways helped demystify the often esoteric wine world and usher in a fresh wave of American oenophiles. Jared Hooper, sommelier and wine director for Santa Rosa’s Mayacama private golf club, believes the film changed the way Americans perceive wine. “I think it helped dispel the Frasier type aesthete snob model and bring in some true passion and respect,” he notes.

Madsen observed the evolution firsthand. “A lot of guys I knew who never drank wine started to experiment with it and discovered something new they could share in and enjoy,” she says. “And women were getting together and doing their own tastings. I love that part of it.” 

Payne is open to another film set in the world of wine, but with caveats. “Oh, man. Everything depends on the story,” he says. “I’d gladly return to oenophiliac cinema, but who are the people? What’s the story? Are there some good laughs in there?” 

Pickett is working on his fifth book in the Sideways series. Could Miles, Jack, Maya and Stephanie return to the screen? As remarkably as Sideways has aged, Giamatti would prefer not to create a new vintage. “Personally, I really don’t think there should be a sequel or expansion to the movie or the characters. It’s important that it all be open-ended, ambiguous. We’re just given a glimpse of those people’s lives. And who knows where they will go, how they will end up?” he says. “I’m not a fan of sequels and long series that go on for 10 seasons. I like single movies with open endings, enigmatic endings. It’s like we met these people briefly and now we will never see them again and we can wonder about them. That’s really nice to me. Explaining what happens, it kills the magic for me. It feels more like life, not to know.”

Side-bar: The Santa Ynez Valley’s Wining and Dining Renaissance

Just as Sideways thrust Pinot Noir into the spotlight, the film also helped drive a surge in tourism to Santa Ynez Valley that shows few signs of abating. During the time of filming, there were just a handful of modest places to eat and stay, including two celebrated shooting locations, Hitching Post and Solvang Restaurant, which still hold court as some of the most frequented establishments in town. But today, these down-home classics, which retain their original décor, now comingle with heaps of decorator-done, Michelin-level restaurants and hotels. 

Sandra Oh was recently in town and indulged in the region’s robust culinary offerings.  “It was so beautiful up there and the restaurant scene is terrific!” she says. Oh visited Mattei’s and S.Y. Kitchen, “and I’m still trying to make it back to Bar Le Cote.” Sommelier and Santa Ynez Valley enthusiast Rebecca Phillips is also a fan. “There is an incredible dining scene and high-end hotels today.” A favorite spot for both lunch and dinner, Chef Michael Cherney and wife Sarah preside over Michelin Bib Gourmand bestowed Peasant’s Feast in Solvang where business has been so bustling, they expanded with a decadent sandwich and deli shop (visitors line up for their house brined pastrami) and arcade with 90’s games across the street. Just down a few doors on Copenhagen Drive, Ramen Kotori is a newer addition to the local dining scene and the first dedicated Ramen restaurant in town. The Gathering Table is also new-ish — previously located at The Ballard Inn, it recently reopened and is where Chef Budi Kazali serves up French Asian fusion cuisine in one of the swankiest dining rooms around. There’s Chef Daisy Ryan’s Bell’s in Los Alamos, which was ordained with one Michelin star. While it may be perched inside of a liquor store, Giorgio’s at Parkway is where Chef Giorgio Curti is cranking out some of the tastiest Italian fare in Santa Barbara County at a reasonable price. Industry-beloved Toscana Group’s two outposts, Nella Kitchen & Bar in Los Olivos and S.Y. Kitchen in Santa Ynez are always the reservations to score. 

The hotels that dot the valley today have also experienced a renaissance. “The Windmill Inn is now Sideways Inn!” exclaims Virginia Madsen of the hip reimagination of the formerly drab motel where Miles and Jack cavorted in the film. The Landsby, with its prime location in the heart of Solvang, oozes Scandinavian panache and is home to a lively bar scene and Mad&Vin, another dining hotspot. The Genevieve and Hotel Ynez, both in Santa Ynez, offer swish décor and cozy outdoor spaces for gatherings. Alisal Ranch, operating since 1946, is one of the most storied, sprawling getaways in the region and has unveiled remodeled guest rooms studded in modern Western décor. Fess Parker Wine Country Inn, which also recently debuted renovated guest rooms, has been the longest standing luxury boutique hotel in the center of the historic town of Los Olivos. There’s even a high dose of swank with the nearby Auberge property — The Inn at Mattei’s Tavern, which was once a stagecoach stop in the 1800’s, just unveiled a shiny new spa, Lavender Barn — the only lavish destination spa in town. 

The winemaker demographics have considerably evolved over the last two decades as well. Male winemakers dominated during the time of filming, but Santa Ynez Valley reportedly now has the largest number of female vintners and winemakers in the world. Jessica Gasca of Strange Family Vineyards and Tasting Room and Story of Soil; Paula Tabalipa, a former stylist and costumer designer on James Mangold films of Tabalipa Wine Co.; and actress Sunny Doench Stricker of Future Perfect Wine are all making noise. “It’s a well-established fact that some of the best winemakers in the world are women,” says sommelier Jared Hooper.

A version of this story appeared in the Nov. 13 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.