The centerpiece of the film is an attempt by the Californian conglomerate Mondavi to buy a large piece of realestate at Aniane in the vineyards of Languedoc.
The bid fails thanks to the opposition of local growers such as Aime Guibert who is seen proclaiming, "Wine is dead!" But it then transpires the land has been sold off to the French actor Gerard Depardieu and his multi-millionaire partner, wine-dealer Bernard Magrez.
As Aniane's former mayor complains: "Mondavi, Depardieu -- I can't see the difference!"
For others, including the legendary Parker himself who is interviewed surrounded by farting bulldogs at his Maryland home, it was precisely the obscurity and corruption linked to the appellation system that made a new way of judging wine inevitable. And if people like the wine he chooses -- that is hardly his fault.
According to Nossiter, who worked on Fatal Attraction and more recently won best film at the Sundance festival with Sunday, his depiction of the wine business is a mirror on the world as a whole.
"What is happening in wine is happening to you," he says.
"Wine is an expression of civilization, but it is also an expression of power. It was the Romans who introduced wine to the Mediterranean basin, and for them it was part of their mission to civilize. If you'd made a film about wine in Roman times it would have painted a very revealing picture.
"Today the picture is paradoxical. On the one hand never have so many people taken seriously the notion that their place of origin and identity have meaning and are worth preserving. And yet never has the world been under such threat from the forces of homogenization."
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