"Burgundy" Review: Wine Doc Lacks Substance — SkimNews
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- "Burgundy", a documentary by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw, is set in the eponymous winemaking region of eastern-central France and riffs on its viticultural tradition with "scrumptious cinematography" but, per the review, "more fragrance than substance."
- The film centers on Bertrand Devillard, patriarch of a 160-year-old winemaking estate, and Enzo, a young aspiring vintner who models himself after midcentury French actor Jean Gabin and works his way up from cleaning vats and stomping harvest.
- Supporting figures include trainee sommelier Céleste; Patrick, maitre'd of a nearby 3-Michelin-Star restaurant; and Guillaume, a recently separated wine critic receiving physiotherapy for RSI caused by lifting 100 glasses a day.
- Enzo abruptly quits the Devillard estate to try mussel farming — defying the arc of a dedicated striver — and Céleste leaves her apprenticeship for Paris, forcing the filmmakers to recast the final third as a "star-cross'd lovers romance" that drifts from the film's ostensible subject.
- Editor Pauline Gaillard's sharp cuts are praised for timing to moments like a character swirling Pinot Noir, but the review criticizes the inclusion of whimsical 8mm footage — including an Enzo-and-Céleste Bonnie and Clyde pastiche sequence — as filler.
- The reviewer judges "Burgundy" a step down from Dweck and Kershaw's prior documentaries "The Truffle Hunters" (2020) and "Gaucho Gaucho" (2024), writing that their deliberate, constructed style falters when messy real life intrudes.
Why it matters: For Dweck and Kershaw — a duo whose prior documentaries earned awards — this Variety review frames "Burgundy" as a stylistic stumble, arguing their pictorialist approach strains the limits of documentary realism without earning the payoff their earlier films delivered. The reviewer's verdict: a vintage that is "fruity and full of promise at the first sip, but loses its complexity long before the last," leaving oenophiles and cinephiles each with something to want.
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