​​​​​​​Susan Evans Grove

Elva La Trque plays Marguerite in this action packed drama about a coveted bottle of wine. Born into poverty but raised in an upper class Parisian family Margueritte has no memory of her migrant worker family. The only thing she has left of them is a vintage bottle of Merlot. One night Marguerite is startled in her apartment on the Champs Elysees by an intruder looking for the wine.

When she calls her parents to tell them what has happened they send over their housekeeper who apparently was a friend of her grandfather. The housekeeper explains that the wine is very rare and there are two possible culprits for the break in. One is Agnon, a crippled wine merchant who was in a horrible accident involving a wine press that left him disfigured and his wife in a coma. He believes if he can uncork the perfect wine his wife will wake up.

The other possibility is the Russian Mafia who feel inferior to the Italian mob and believe they cannot be a legitimate organized crime family drinking vodka. These surrey fellows scour the earth looking for the most rare wines they can find to legitimize their operation. The film is full of thrilling chase scenes where Marguerite and her bottle nearly escape.

Eventually the wine merchant’s wife awakes when someone cracks a beer in her hospital room. The Russians meet a less happy fate and are run over on the Champ Elyees by a bus full of Italian tourists.

I won’t give away the fate of the wine but I will tell you there is a celebration dinner cooked by the housekeeper who has a penchant for recipes with red wine.

The film is an obvious dig at the Russians during the height of the cold war as well as a homage to the Italian Mafia in the U.S. who had a great influence on studio financing and like being glamorized in the films they produced. 

This is Pierre Beaujoulais’s first film. He seamlessly translates Jacques Chianti’s words into a fine vintage.