Wine and Movie Pairing: Grand Theft 'Brusco
“You can't stop art, motherf***ers!”
There are few joys in this world that are greater than a highbrow/lowbrow combo. My favorite champagne pairing is always and forever Popeye’s fried chicken, and every movie fan has their favorite “bad movie”. Today’s wine and movie both represent a lot of high/low within their fields, but together? Grand Theft Hamlet (2024) and Medici Ermete’s Concerto Lambrusco are even greater than the sum of their parts.
Grand Theft Hamlet (2024) asks a simple question: What if the characters inside the video game Grand Theft Auto put on a production of Hamlet? During the pandemic, two out-of-work actors (Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen) stumbled on a deserted amphitheater in GTA that looks an awful lot like the real life Hollywood Bowl, and had the idea of bringing together an open call cast to stage a version of Hamlet inside the game. When Sam’s partner (Pinny Grylls, a documentary filmmaker) hears about his plan, she becomes the official documentarian of the process, and all three discover “the play’s the thing” in a meta version of the Shakespearean classic they are trying to stage.
The rest of the movie is at points outright hilarious, at others incredibly touching. Those who have ever participated in any kind of theatre will relate to the cast-wrangling that ends up more like herding cats than actual rehearsal. There are some honest discussions about the loneliness epidemic, especially seeing that all of the action in the film took place during lockdown in the United Kingdom. All that aside, the universal messages of both Shakespeare’s melancholy Dane and the healing power of art come together and co-exist nicely… alongside random explosions, unnecessary shootouts, and Non-Player Characters caught up in their own games.
I’ve been on a mini Shakespeare kick lately as I hype myself up to read the complete works of William Shakespeare in chronological order later this year. Hamlet is still a sentimental favorite of mine, and yet these words that were first published in the very beginning of the 17th Century feel evergreen and fresh when coming out of the mouths of video game characters. Grand Theft Hamlet proves that life imitates art in more ways than we expect, and while it’s always nice to come back to familiar texts, the real joy is being able to turn expectation on its head and discovering something new about the text and ourselves when it is reread and performed anew.
So what to pair with Shakespeare in a video game? Something that is just as unserious a vibe, with serious quality. It’s Lambrusco time, and the Concerto Lambrusco from Medici Ermete is absolutely perfect.
The Medici Ermete estate has been producing wine since 1890, and is now run by the fifth generation of the Medici family in Reggio Emilia, the heart of Emilia-Romagna. While the “Lambrusco Boom” of the 1970s hit Emilia-Romagna, quality from most estates began to suffer… but Medici Ermete always set out to produce a high quality wine that could be exported anywhere. In response to the lower export demands of the 1980s, Medici doubled down on organic vineyard techniques and viticultural methods to produce more, high quality grapes for use across still and sparkling wines of all shapes and sizes.
“Concerto” is now the hallmark label in the Medici Ermete lineup as a result of this hard work. These Lambrusco Salamino vineyards have been certified organic since 2020, and the taste has never been better. While most Lambruscos are non-vintage and ready to pop open once they hit shelves, Concerto is a single vineyard and single vintage Lambrusco that has a distinct sense of terroir. The color is a deep purple, with some very light but steady fizz upon first opening the bottle. Yes, the brambly dark fruits are there, but the considerable grip is just begging for food, while the underlying support of a clay soil appears on the palate. This is a wine meant to be shared with friends, but never taken too seriously.
Food pairings can lean either high end (wood-fired pizza from your neighbor’s backyard pizza oven, bolognese with egg noodles, or an expensive hard salami) or low end (greasy pepperoni and jalapeño pizza, Spaghetti-O’s, or the expensive/underwhelming favorite, airport charcuterie). Whatever your mood, there’s something about the wine and the movie that have a universal appeal. At the end of the day? To thine own self be true.
The 2022 vintage of Medici Ermete’s Concerto Lambrusco is available at your local independent wine store. Check WineSearcher for details on stockists near you. Thank you for supporting small businesses!
Grand Theft Hamlet (2024) is now streaming on MUBI.