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the grapey oscar goes to…

At the Oscars, Piper-Heidsieck will be the exclusive Champagne (Cuvée Brut and Rosé Sauvage during the pre-show, and Prestige Cuvée at the Governors Ball). And for the wine, Sterling Vineyards will provide a Limited Edition Red Carpet Reserve, Sauvignon Blanc, and Chardonnay.

But in The Grand Budapest Hotel, which won the Writer’s Guild Award for best original screenplay and should by all means will the Oscar as well, they drink a wine called Pouilly-Jouvet in two separate scenes.

First, when Jude Law’s character sits down with Mustafa to hear his life story, Mustafa orders a “Pouilly-Jouvet ‘52, plus a split of the brut.” With Wes Anderson’s comic and awesome attention to detail, the waiter comes over and pours out a drop in the teeniest of glasses for Mustafa to sample it.

grand budapest champagne gifOnce acceptable, he pours it out into the two coupes.

grand budapest champagneLater, when they’re prepping for the train ride to the funeral, M. Gustave tells Lobby Boy to “bring a bottle of the Pouilly-Jouvet ’26 in an ice bucket with two glasses so we don’t have to drink the cat-piss they serve in the dining car.”

gustave-and-his-lobby-boy-zeroThere are two Pouilly’s in the wine world, both French. The first is Pouilly-Fuissé (pronounced poo-yee fwee-say), which is a Chardonnay from the Macon region in Burgundy. The second is Pouilly-Fumé (pronounced poo-yee foo-may), which is a Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire Valley.

There’s a Pouilly-Fuissé from a producer called Theodore-Jouvet, but the producer doesn’t seem to exist anymore and anyway you wouldn’t call the wine Pouilly-Jouvet. So, it sounds like Wes Anderson made up this quirky hybrid wine, which is in line with all of the amazing small and richly creative details he has in every scene of his movies.

Even though everyone thinks Boyhood will win Best Picture (blech), Grand Budapest certainly wins the Grapefriend Oscar!

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