Mondovino: The Complete Series

The cast of characters in southern France are introduced.

Jonathan Nossiter goes to Burgundy following a harvest and interviews the workers who are grumbling over labor and family issues. Then he travels to Sterling, where chaos tightens the noose around the globalization issue

Napa rules the American wine industry, but who's behind the scenes? This black comedy shows that the Mexican workers have a greater voice than the chiefs in their Beverly Hills-style mansions think.

The battle to defend nature and local artisanal winemaking extends from the Pyrénnés mountains to the asphalt of Brooklyn.

In the fifth episode, Nossiter addresses all the arguments made after "Mondovino," the film. Sit through Michael Rolland and Robert Parker's lectures on their own influence, on pricing, terroir, his indifference to history and not come away astonished at their arrogance.

What does an older bottle of wine taste like? Neal Rosenthal regrets the way outstanding critics interfere with the wine tasting culture. Quo vademus? Where are we going? This episode studies the new changes of wine making, especially the increasing use of new French oak.

In episode seven, the question of authorship in the creation of a wine is discussed. Alain Châtelet of the Govt. Bureau on Wine Fraud leads us through the delicate question of consumer protection with respect to phony wines -- difficult to prosecute owning to the reluctance of victims to step forward. And what can you say about a wine that is both pleasurable and a phony?

Nossiter returns to Italy in episode eight and investigates the locals who have been producing and drinking wine for decades, even centuries. But what the hell do they know? They discuss the terroir issue that the locals have been making wine they like but it is wine the tourists and foreigners don't like.

In episode nine, the story of the Antinoris and the Frescobaldis, both aristocratic families of great antiquity. It is a tale of betrayal and discord, of false starts and of finding the courage to move on. It is a particularly ugly aspect of modern wine culture that history counts for so little. It is a deep, historical reflection in the pursuit of global markets.

Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina: the New Wine World, but with age-old conflicts. What's at stake for indigenous people and foreign investors? How do the European-American conflicts play out in South America?