Jaws with Wine at The Mockingbird
- Tony Elvin
- 11 hours ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 8 minutes ago
Thanks to everyone that joined us for Jaws with Wine on this 51st anniversary of the movie on behalf of lifeguard Tony, Bruce the Shark and the rest of The Wine Events Crew. Read on for details of our coastal wines, movie trivia and our Amity Gallery.
Our Coastal Wines
A combination of native Xarel-lo and Macabeo grapes with the international Chardonnay grape added to the blend, something only permitted since 1986. The typical and delicate Parellada grape has been omitted from the blend to produce a weightier wine. Stone-fruit aromas and honeyed nut flavours with a long finish.
Our Great White was something really special. Produced by Pazo Cilleiro, in Val do Salnes. Rias Baixas is where the sea and earth embrace. Aromas of white flowers and citrus. Zippy vibrant citrus and stone fruit on the palate.
A cool coastal rose, from the 'Méditerranée' French Riviera, taking grapes from both Provence and the Rhone Valley. Attractive pink colour. Intense flavours of fresh strawberries and raspberries that build and linger on the dry clean finish.
Pinot Noir from Casablanca 60 miles NW of Santiago, near the Pacific Coast. The region is reknowned for producing crisp, aromatic white wines Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, elegant reds like this Pinot Noir and cool climate Syrah. Fragrant nose of mint, thyme and raspberry. Sour cherry and wild red berries on the palate, seasoned with dark spices and dried rose petals. Aged for 6 months in oak. 14% alcohol is barely detectable thanks to good acidity.
The Lisboa wine region (formerly called Estremadura) is Portugal's largest wine producer, running North from Lisbon along the Atlantic coast, featuring a cool, maritime climate, diverse rolling hills, and nine distinct regions. This wine might be familliar after James Martin brought it to prominence after saying it was one of the best wines he'd tasted in ten year of Saturday Kitchen. A field blend of Tinta Roriz, Touriga Nacional and Castelão. It's bold, juicy and jammy, full of ripe forest fruit flavours.
The Amity Gallery
A Boatload of Trivia
What do you think of when you think of Jaws? The music. When John Williams first played the theme tune to Spielberg, he laughed, don’t we need a proper theme tune? Then blown away as it got going. This theme tune probably made John Williams career. Spielberg said movie only half as successful without it.
He won an Oscar but on Oscar night was conducting so had to run up & back to collect it.
67 million people watched the movie on its first release (1/3 of US population), becoming the first ever Summer blockbuster.
Spielberg wasn't the initial choice for director, Dick Richards was but when he was talking through opening shot and reference 'the whale', he was sacked! Not making Moby Dick!
The prop arm used for Chrissie’s remains looked too fake so they buried a crew member with her arm showing.
Spielberg named the shark Bruce, after his lawyer.
Bruce made a comeback in what 2003 movie? Finding Nemo! Leader of the Fish-Friendly Sharks support group, with their motto “I am a nice shark, not a mindless eating machine. If I am to change this image, I must first change myself. Fish are friends, not food.”
Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, was used as Amity Island primarily because even at twelve miles out to sea, the sandy bottom was only thirty feet down, allowing the mechanical shark to function. Residents were paid $64 to scream and run across the beach as extras.
Their annual 5k visitors rocketed to 150k after the movie release.
During the scene when Quint, Hooper, and Brody are loading up the Orca, a small grey shack with a red door can be seen to the left of Quint's place. It belonged to a local resident who at first was ticked off with the production because mist from the spray paint used on set landed on his boats. When he discovered what was really going on, and how naive the crew was about fishing and boating, he offered to assist them. His equipment and expertise became so useful to them that without him the film might never have been completed. He even became the role model for Robert Shaw's Hooper character. His name was Lynn Murphy and he never received credit, on or off screen.
The scene where a head pops out of boat was not originally scripted. Spielberg says he got greedy from original preview screenings where the shark jumps out behind Brody’s head and wanted ‘one more scare’. Audiences were so scared they missed the best line (bigger boat) so they extended the scene to give the audience time to recover.
During filming the Orca began sinking, Spielberg called for actors to be rescued, but sound engineer John R Carter held his tape recorder above his head and said f**k the actors, save the sound dept. The film camera was completely submerged but when they realised film developing solution is saline, the film was flown to a NY film lab and they were able to save all of it.
Though a respected actor, Robert Shaw had problems with drinking and was a constant source of tension on set. Schneider described him as perfect gent, when sober. Shaw drinking between takes, said I wish I could quit and Dreyfus though his glass in the ocean. He then bullied Dreyfus whenever he was drinking throughout the rest of filming. He would dare him to do dangerous things and called him a coward when he refused. One day he sprayed Dreyfus with a fire hose and Dreyfus stormed off set but it's liley this tension helped the movie.
The USS Indianapolis scene, called for crew to be drunk but Shaw took it too far and none of his takes could be used. He apologised to Spielberg that night and did it in one take perfectly the next night. Dreyfus and Shaw patched up 10 yrs later, planned to act together again but he died before they could.
There were two fears for Spielberg with this movie, the audience seeing a mechanical shark and the sight of land, which would ruin the feeling of isolation, with people thinking the crew could escape at any time.
25% of the film is shot from water level to provide viewers the perspective of treading water.
Why is Quint’s boat named The Orca? It's the only known predator of the Great White. The novel and film misrepresent sharks, they rarely attack humans and they're not as vengeful. Shark populations plummeted off the eastern seaboard of North American after the movie as Americans began to hunt them. Both the Writer and Director said wouldn’t hae written the book or made the movie if they'd have known how many sharks would die needlessly as a resuly.
Charlton Heston was considered for role of Brody but Spielberg thought he was too heroic, so less peril for the character.
Hooper has an affair with Brody’s wife in the book and is supposed to die in the shark cage. They struggled to get a shark to attack the cage with the Hooper dummy in it, when they eventually got a shark to attack and destroy the cage there was no dummy in it. The footage was so good they decided to let Hooper escape the shark in the movie and survive.
Filming ballooned from 55 days to 159, the crew nicknamed it FLAWS and Spielberg thought his career as a filmmaker was over and would never be hired again, 'nobody ever went 100 days over the filming schedule'.
Actually it was the first movie to reach $100 million mark, becoming the highest grossing movie of all time .. until Star Wars.
Once again, thank you for joining us. We hope you had a fantastic time and look forward to seeing you again soon for another movie with wine.
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