"Is a Wine-Soaked Film Too, Er, Rosé?"
"MILES, the protagonist of the Oscar-nominated film ''Sideways,'' may be all thumbs when it comes to writing and women, but when the subject is wine, he is a poet of pinot noirs and just about every other grape he meets on an alcohol-fueled road trip through the Santa Barbara wine country.
In between swirls, tastings and lyrical wine epiphanies, however, this same merlot-phobic sophisticate is shown stumbling blindly out of a bar, chugging wine straight from the bottle, and, at his most desperate, doing the unimaginable: guzzling from the spit bucket.
Critics for the most part found the movie delightful and described Miles as an oenophile, adult viewers flocked to the clever comedy, and the positive buzz bolstered tourism in the Santa Ynez Valley, where the movie was filmed.
But a much more critical appraisal is coming from alcohol treatment professionals, recovering alcoholics and others who say that while Miles obviously suffers from alcohol addiction, his illness does not seem to register with audiences, just as it is overlooked in the movie. Polly McCall, an alcohol and drug therapist in New York City, said many of her patients are appalled that all they hear people talk about is how funny the characters are in ''Sideways,'' which has been nominated for five Academy Awards, including best picture and best adapted screenplay. Ms. McCall argued that there is a connection between all of Miles's imbibing and his considerable troubles, from finding it hard to get up in the morning to his failed relationships and money problems.
''When you're stealing from your mother, you're an alcoholic,'' Ms. McCall said, referring to one of the scenes. ''There's a societal denial that alcohol is a drug. Just substitute heroin, and you could not have made that movie.''
The red flags are obvious to addiction specialists, but few wine lovers seem to have noticed them. When Robin Garr, a wine writer, posed the question ''Would you characterize Miles as an alcoholic?'' on his Web site, wineloverspage.com, many of the responses skirted the issue:
''I'd characterize Miles as both wine geek and heavy drinker,'' wrote one moviegoer.
Another said, ''I never felt that he had a total dependence on alcohol; it was just a handy tool for him.''
A third said, ''I would say Miles has a serious problem with alcohol.''
Yet another said, ''I just don't see alcoholism in Miles.''
Alcohol treatment professionals say opinions are as diverse as grape varietals only because of the image fine wine enjoys compared to, say, malt liquor. Behind its veneer of glamour and sophistication, they say, wine can be the perfect cover for alcohol dependence because many people do not associate it with alcoholic behavior, not even drinkers themselves.
'''How can you call me an alcoholic? I only drink red wine,''' said John Schwarzlose, quoting patients at the Betty Ford Center, the drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in Rancho Mirage, Calif. But ''this 'hard' stuff is a myth,'' said Mr. Schwarzlose, who is the center's chief executive. ''Alcohol is alcohol.''
Alcoholism is generally characterized by compulsive drinking, preoccupation with drinking and tolerance for alcohol. ''What makes people an alcoholic is not how often they drink or how much,'' Mr. Schwarzlose added. ''What makes somebody an alcoholic is repeated use despite the consequences. The alcoholic will keep drinking anyway because he's addicted.''
Stephan Gonzalez, coordinator at an adult treatment program of the Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse in Santa Barbara, Calif., said Miles reminded him of some of the council's clients. He said Miles's stealing from his mother, drinking while driving and going on binges shows a lack of control that makes him, if not an outright addict, an alcohol abuser, ''all under the wonderful guise of sophisticated social drinking.''
There are no data showing that the rising popularity of wine in this country is playing a larger role in alcoholism; alcoholism rates are down, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. And while sales of wine have nearly doubled since the early 1990's and demand is at an all-time high, most Americans still prefer beer to wine.
BUT some alcohol therapists say that more of their patients are wine lovers than in the past and that more of the wine lovers are women. The counselors also say that the benign view of wine in American culture makes a dependence on it harder to recognize and fight.
There are also practical barriers. ''Some patients have spent thousands and thousands of dollars building their wine collections, and they don't want to get rid of it,'' said Daniel Gatlin, a psychologist and clinical director at Renaissance Malibu, a treatment center in Malibu, Calif.
A 38-year-old recovering alcoholic in New York said it is tough for wine drinkers to fess up to an alcohol problem because wine comes with status, its own language, a communal experience: what he calls ''all the accouterments of denial.''
''It was really more acceptable to drink wine, and a lot of it, than to drink whiskey or beer,'' said the man, a professional fund-raiser who did not want his identity revealed to keep his addiction private. ''You can sit around a table with friends and drink four or five bottles of wine and nobody thinks there's anything wrong with it,'' he said.
Caroline Styne, an owner and the wine director at A.O.C., a popular wine bar in Los Angeles, said that at some wine tastings there her valet staff has had to confiscate car keys and call taxis. ''Some people become incredibly obnoxious and rude, but they're all so serious about wine,'' she said. ''It's like a free ticket to abuse alcohol. The behavior is the same as if they were drinking vodka but somehow it's O.K. because they're drinking wine.''
People in the business of wine say alcoholism is almost a taboo subject. Just as in ''Sideways,'' in real life the word ''alcoholic'' is not heard in conversations in which expressions like ''bouquet,'' ''tannins'' and ''buttery'' are knowingly exchanged. ''This is one of the topics that a lot of people get skittish about,'' said Mr. Garr, the wine writer.
In his opinion Miles is ''a heavy drinker that sometimes used alcohol to mute his emotions,'' he said, but not one whose life it destroyed. Therefore, Mr. Garr said, he is not a drunk.
At Los Olivos Wine and Spirits Emporium in Los Olivos, Calif., one of the settings for ''Sideways,'' Bob Senn, the owner, said his idea of an alcoholic was more like Jack Lemmon in the 1962 film ''Days of Wine and Roses,'' in which the character is fired from his job and his wife accidentally sets fire to their apartment as they spiral into alcoholism. ''Miles, like many wine drinkers, could abuse the beverage,'' he said. ''I wouldn't say Miles was an alcoholic.''
But Joan Clark, the alumni director at the Betty Ford Center, said that at an Alcoholic Anonymous meeting she attended, several people said they had walked out of the movie.
''They thought it was awful,'' Ms. Clark said. ''They said it made them squirmy to see somebody enjoying it so much.''
SHE said she was able to enjoy the movie because ''I've been in recovery for 20 years, so I have distance.''
Alexander Payne, the director and a writer of ''Sideways,'' did not reply to a request for comment. Rex Pickett, author of the novel on which the film is based, declined to comment through a representative. In his book, ''sideways'' is used as synonym for ""drunk."" In a recent Newsweek article, Paul Giamatti, the actor who plays Miles, said he definitely saw Miles as an alcoholic, adding that Mr. Payne ''didn't want to make it the central agony of the movie, though, so I didn't get too obsessed with it.''
Only a minority of alcohol drinkers fit the definition of alcoholic, and some people argue that wine aficionados are less likely to become alcoholics because of the way they enjoy their drink of choice.
''Wine connoisseurship is about exposing your senses to all the subtleties and complexities that make fine wine what it is,'' Mr. Garr said. ''If you're going to numb your senses, you've wasted your investment.''
Philip Shayne, the general manager and sommelier at Chef Allen's in Aventura, Fla., said that for serious wine drinkers, the allure has more to do with ''the artistry of the winemaking experience,'' and the desire to become knowledgeable and to impress, than with alcohol.
''It's the amount of variables that you need to know to get a grip on what's good and what's not,'' he said. ''It's the vintage, the grapes, the weather conditions, how it's bottled. Vodka doesn't have the same panache.''
Dr. Arthur Klatsky, a senior consultant in cardiology at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Oakland and an authority on alcohol's effect on health, said that the way wine is drunk can have some built-in safeguards against inebriation.
''It tends not to produce the obvious adverse effects because it's done slowly, over many hours and with food, so people don't get drunk as readily,'' he said.
Still many wine lovers say that they watch themselves carefully for signs that they are about to cross the line, and some in the wine industry say overconsumption can be an occupational hazard.
''Even if you spit, you taste wine for an hour or two, and there's no question it has an effect on you,'' said Randall Grahm, owner of Bonny-Doon Vineyard in Santa Cruz, Calif. ''You have to be conscious of it.''
Mr. Shayne said that the customers who overindulge usually ''start off with too many cocktails and then go on to wine, and then they're over the top.'' He said he had not yet seen ''Sideways,'' but he cautioned against judging Miles too harshly, given that the movie is set in the wine country.
''When people go to the wine country, they have the opportunity to drink more than they normally would with all the tastings,'' he said. ''The wine is free flowing.''
It is not an ideal place to determine who is an alcoholic, he said, when ''everybody goes around with a buzz.''"