At a long table in the redwood grove at MacMurray Ranch Vineyards, Sonoma-based film producers Marc and Brenda Lhormer regaled dinner companions with reflections on their recently released movie “Bottle Shock.” The film lends Hollywood treatment to the 1976 blind tasting in Paris that shook the very foundation of the wine establishment when French judges scored California wines higher than their countrymen’s.
Although the story takes place entirely in Napa Valley and France, the Lhormers filmed primarily in California’s Sonoma County. Three-quarters of the outdoor scenes, including helicopter aerials, were shot on Kunde Estate Winery & Vineyards’ whopping 1,850 acres. (Kunde, in fact, has kept a boxing ring built for the film on a knoll overlooking much of the property.)
“Brenda gave our director Randy Miller a comprehensive tour of possible shooting locations in both Napa and Sonoma valleys,” Marc Lhormer says. “Ultimately, we all decided that Kunde’s property and Buena Vista property offered more of the sweeping and untrafficked beauty to portray 1976 Napa.”
