The documentary I watched was Sour Grapes. It covers the story of a mysterious young man (Rudy Kurniawan) who wants to become a “player” in the world of fine wine. He starts going to auctions and buying copious amounts of expensive wines from the Burgundy region in France. This naturally attracts attention to him and people begin to look into his background. At the same time, the price of Burgundy wines starts to skyrocket. Once prices start to skyrocket, more scrutiny is applied to the market. This somewhat starts when Bill Koch (conservative donor guy you have probably heard about in the news) decides to search his extensive wine collection, containing over 43,000 bottles, for fraudulent wines. Spoiler alert, he finds some, including wine that was traced back to Rudy Kurniawan). This launches an investigation into him and selling fraudulent wine. At the same time, wines that are clearly fake start appearing in what are considered reputable auction catalogs. This sparks  an FBI investigation into Rudy, eventually leading to the search of his house where formulas for wine are found along with countless labels, wax, corks, and bottles -- everything you need to expertly fake wine. I’ll stop here so I don't totally spoil the rest of the film.

    I really liked how the movie was done. It made me interested in the wine market and economy as someone who is both under the drinking age limit and doesn’t even like wine (I’ve had it at church). It accomplished this through an escalating cast of interviews. They started with his friends who lay the scene for the events soon to transpire and give you a good sense of Rudy. I felt like he was being interviewed even though he actually declined to comment or be interviewed for the film. The B roll used made it seem like he was actually there. The interviews then moved to Bill Koch, which really threw me for a loop. I paused and did a double take followed by a google search to make sure this was in fact Bill Koch. His interview follows typical conventions, but is especially interesting when he is followed into his wine cellar, which is out of this world impressive (he has wine that Thomas Jefferson made). The interest of Bill Koch is eventually topped when the actual creator of the wines is brought on and interivewed. He is shown in the vineyards in france, making him credible, and he also takes on an investigative role which makes him all the more interesting. The FBI interviews were good and interesting until they did this thing in the B roll I really was not a fan of. They displayed documents and receipts incriminating Rudy on a busy black and white background that was both hard to see and kind of annoying. There are also many scenes of expensive wine parties and auctions which help the viewer get a sense of the atmosphere all of this takes place in. Without these shots, the movie would surely fail.

    I would recommend this documentary to a friend, only once they have watched everything else of substance on netflix. It was good, but the story, although interesting and intriguing, is laughable. I have never been less outraged by fraud in my life. When it is revealed that Rudy cheated buyers, including multi-billionaire Bill Koch out of millions of dollars by selling fake wine, I really didn’t care at all. In fact, I had the opposite reaction the documentary wanted me to feel. I was rooting for Rudy at the end of the film. He managed to rip extremely rich people off, and I was more than ok with it. The film threw out the numbers detailing the extent of his fraud, and I smiled. This man managed to buy himself a Bugatti in an epic fashion by ripping off rich people. That’s awesome regardless of whether he committed a crime, and I respect what he did more than I will ever respect someone who drinks $100,000 of wine in a night. His crime was ridiculous, but then so again, so is anybody willing to pay more than $100 for a bottle of grape juice.