Interesting. I had a girlfriend once who just loved Merlot, so I tend to think of it as a "girlie" drink. Of course, she loved most any wine, it's just that Merlot was her favorite.
As for Sideways, I was in Lompoc in October 2004 waiting for a mission to launch out of Vandenburg AFB. We watched Sideways as a team building exercise. The cool thing about that was that we had been hanging out at a lot of the places in the movie. For instance, the restaurant where the idjut friend picked up the fat waitress is where we had our "splashdown" party, and of course we hit quite a few of the wine tasting places also. Even the drive up from LA was familiar, they showed a famous tunnel and I recognized all the signs, etc. That was pretty cool, to be in the area that movie was filmed.
Actually that was a really great movie. When I watched it with the team, I got disgusted when he went to the fast food place at the end of the movie, as it seemed he was accepting being a total loser. At that point I either quit watching or got distracted. It was only years later that I re-watched it and realized that the really expensive wine he was drinking was reserved for when he had a kid with his ex, and by drinking it with a burger he was finally letting go of her, and that he did try to hook up again with the hot wine industry chick at the end again. Totally different ending than what I remembered, lol!
Anyway great movie. The scene where he sneaks back in the room and steals the wallet, only to be chased by the naked trucker, is probably in my top ten of funniest scenes of all time. I nearly busted a gut laughing at that.
