Metacritic reviews

Bottle Shock is more than the story. It is also about people who love their work, care about it with passion and talk about it with knowledge.

This intelligent, affectionate, beautifully acted movie gives crowd-pleasers a good name.

It's the kind of feel-good movie whose resolution is evident from the start, being based as it is on a true story. But that doesn't make the journey any less interesting.

A charming comedy-drama that's surprising true to the events that inspired it.

Wine lovers won't just sip but guzzle a lot of this down, and the same effect that sun-dappled days and sex in California had on "Sideways" operates here.

A great story - and a true one, more or less - Bottle Shock nonetheless fails to deliver much in the way of entertainment.

The soul of the grape, that thing that elevates a wine to greatness, proves here as elusive on screen as in the bottle.

Bottle Shock is unable to figure out what kind of movie it wants to be, and flops around between madcap comedy and rousing drama. To borrow a wine-snob term of art, it lacks structure.

The movie should have been more like Rickman: sparkling and light, with just a hint of acid. Instead, it's a huge gulp of vinegar.

This schlocky period piece doesn't do the pioneering Northern Californians justice. The script is overwritten to the point of parody.