The Holiday with Wine at The Crescent Theatre
- Tony Elvin
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
Thank you so much to everyone that joined us for our festive screening of 'The Holiday with Wine' at The Crescent. It was amazing to see the place packed to the rafters!
Read on for details on all the wines from the evening, our gallery of photos, and bunch of trivia.
As promised, these are the wines we enjoyed ...
The Wines
No civilized Christmas Day morning can start without a glass of fizz! Maybe with some smoked salmon, or when the guests arrive. This award-winning wine comes from the Kingscote, a 160-acre wildlife-rich estate. Using the Charmat method with Champagne grapes, it’s crisp, dry, and refreshing with notes of elderflower and gooseberry!
Maison Duvergey-Taboureau are renowned as Burgundy specialists. They took their expertise down to the South of France to produce this Chardonnay from key vineyards. The ideal climate and diverse soils result in delicious, complex wines at a fraction of the price of Burgundy. Expect notes of acacia flowers and nectarine with an elegant mineral finish!
Burgondie is the legendary territory that gave birth to the name Bourgogne. This garnet-purple Beaujolais reveals aromas of raspberries, redcurrants, and wild strawberries. It’s intense in the mouth with a beautiful floral finish and hints of black pepper—perfect for a decadent Christmas lunch!
This fruity Shiraz in a cooler-climate style (think Northern Rhône) has concentrated mulberry and black pepper notes, combined with soft plummy fruit flavors and smooth, savoury tannins. Perfect if you fancy something a bit bolder with your Christmas lunch!
Founded in 1865 by Norwegians Weise and Krohn, this wonderful port is a perfect match for Christmas pudding, mince pies, or cheese!
The Gallery
The Trivia
Some highlights from our movie trivia ...
This film was written specifically with Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, and Jack Black in mind. Nancy Meyers wanted Jack Black to play Miles after seeing his performance in School of Rock (2003).
Robert Downey Jr. and Jimmy Fallon auditioned to play Graham and Miles, respectively. Downey said, "We both got called in just as seat fillers... [director Nancy Meyers] needed someone to read with the gals and we're sitting there going, 'It's about to happen for us.' And I was like, 'I've got to have a better English accent than Jude Law at this point.' And Winslet said, 'That was the worst British accent I've ever heard.' And I was like, 'I'll check out now, but I'm taking the gummy bears from the minibar.'"
On an episode of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (1992), Dustin Hoffman said that his cameo in the film was unplanned and not scripted. He was driving by the Blockbuster Video shown in the film and saw all of the cameras and equipment so he decided to stop in and see what was happening. Because he knew writer and director Nancy Meyers, they worked up a scene which ultimately made the final cut.
The website Amanda and Iris use to exchange houses is a real website, homeexchange.com
A few months after the movie came out, the popularity of "house swapping" was on the rise. So much so, in fact, that police in England had to issue a warning against swapping homes with strangers due to identity fraud and murders.
Within Hollywood, writer and director Nancy Meyers is known for doing a rather large number of re-takes for any given scene segment, and during the shooting for this movie, at the end of a large number of re-takes for one particular segment of the newspaper Christmas party scene, Kate Winslet aroused a good-natured laugh from everyone on-set when, after the end of what she felt was a particularly good take following another long series of takes, she dropped to her knees in front of a table, clasped her hands together on the tabletop, and began to pantomime a prayer for that to be the last take of the segment.
There is a scene in the film in which Cameron Diaz and Jude Law are chasing one another in a field after having lunch, which features a bossa nova-style piece from the musical score. Writer and director Nancy Meyers was so intent on having this scene in the film as a tribute to similar scenes featured in the films of Rock Hudson and Doris Day. Meyers was so intent on having the right music for the scene that composer Hans Zimmer actually named the piece "For Nancy".
Miles's (Jack Black) studio setup, seen in the opening scene, with keyboard, monitors, sound modules, etc., was copied directly from the studio of Hans Zimmer, who composed the score for the film.
Although the Rosehill Cottage of the film doesn't exist in reality - the exteriors were built from scratch in a field and the interiors are sets - Honeysuckle Cottage in Holmbury St Mary, UK provided inspiration for the crew who designed it.
When Iris (Kate Winslet) is looking around Amanda's home after her arrival, she stumbles upon a rather sizeable collection of Sony Pictures' films. One of the films in Amanda's collection is Enigma (2001), in which Winslet co-starred.
When Amanda (Cameron Diaz) arrives at the cottage in England, she drives into the village and says, "I need a drink." She's then seen walking around a shop, drinking from a bottle of wine. When she buys the corkscrew, the cork from the wine bottle is still attached.
Reportedly, the three members of British indie rock band The Wombats went to see this movie, expecting a rom-com in the spirit of Bridget Jones's Diary (2001). They ended up hating the film so much, that they wrote the song "Kill the Director" about it, which contains lyrics like "If this is a rom-com, kill the director" and "This is no Bridget Jones!"
Amanda and Graham’s date at Cornwell Manor is very close to Chipping Norton. I'm sure we can all agree that the 'cottage' Amanda finds on homeexchange.com is not representative of the Cotswolds!
Thank you!
We look forward to welcoming you back to another of our events very soon but why not check out our website or sign up to our monthly mailing list to find out about new events first:
Merry Christmas from Tony and the Wine Events Co Ho Ho Ho Crew
P.S. We've got Christmas Wrapped Up! Why not give the gift of 'Movies with Wine' this Christmas?
You can buy tickets for the wine enthusiasts in your life or buy Mockingbird gift vouchers to let them choose their favourite ‘movie with wine’!
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