The battle of the bottles

My grandfather was a huge fan of National Geographic magazine. He loved its rich landscapes, the exotic locales, the sharp, excellent photography. We youngsters meanwhile liked the occasional unexpected glimpse of naked women between its covers.

Even relaxed in his armchair, my grandfather could watch National Geographic specials on TV and imagine he was somewhere else.

Ironically, now that I’m halfway around the world, having seen quite a bit more of the planet than my grandfather, I was sitting recently in a Makati restaurant – Mezze! – preparing to watch… a National Geographic TV special. Call it generational closure.

We were invited to watch an upcoming episode of the National Geographic Channel’s latest series, Inside. Airing on Mondays starting this month, Inside promises to take viewers behind the scenes at key world events, competitions and locations. "It’s a backstage pass to the extraordinary," chirps the press announcement.

Indeed, National Geographic’s cameras were allowed access inside Beijing’s Forbidden City; they took in the largest outdoor rock concert in Brazil with the Rolling Stones; earlier this month, they aired Inside episodes on the FIFA Club Championship Toyota Cup and took viewers behind the scenes for a Soyuz rocket launch.

In the world of cable access, even documentary channels have to work hard to stay relevant and cutting-edge. They have to reach out to viewers. For every Animal Planet there’s a Discovery, and so on. Sometimes the teasers gets a little sensationalistic ("Ever wonder how many times a male cheetah can do it in one night? Tune in this Friday for Cheetah Booty Call…"). But hey, that’s the times we live in.

National Geographic Channel has a somewhat more serious style, and maybe that’s why we were gathered to watch Inside: Battle of the Wines, a documentary on "the world’s most prestigious winemaking contest," the International Wine and Spirit Competition held yearly in London’s historic Guildhall. The press people at Mezze! enjoyed a buffet meal and then chased it down with a so-so Italian wine called Bellagio (a bit like a red wine spritzer). Then we watched as Wine & Spirit Competition organizer Bev Steer gathered together thousands of crates of wine and shlepped them to Guildhall, where the coveted title of "Winemaker of the Year" was to be announced.

Winemaking is a time-honored process. Climate, soil, and quality grape skins are everything in producing the best bottles in the world. Skins, in fact, make up 65 percent of a wine’s color, taste and character.

But the Inside one-hour documentary didn’t fuss too much with the winemaking. Rather, it focused on the often-tense scenes before competition night, when elite critics and tasters from the wine trade narrow down the selection from nearly 2,000 wines – to a single one. The winner gets a big glass wine goblet. And, of course, tens of millions of dollars in additional wine sales.

Backstage, tempers flare, people spill food and drop cases of wine. But this goes on in any kitchen. Even more disturbing is the sequence five months prior to the big event, where a total of 5,000 wines are tasted in order to narrow down the lineup to less than 2,000. Ever see rows of smartly-dressed wine critics slurping down and then spitting out tons of wine? I have. I had a front-row seat.

This sequence is matched in its Jackass-ness by a scene during competition night in which the filmmakers rigged a "wineglass cam" inside several tasters’ glasses. What we see is a grotesque, fisheye view from inside a wineglass, as amoeba-like lips are pressed over the rim and the red contents glide down the guzzler’s throats. Hey, it’s almost like Fear Factor.

Battle of the Wines ultimately focuses on three winemakers – Mitchell Taylor of Wakefield Wines in Australia; Tom Selfridge of California’s Hess Estates; and Beltran Domecq, a sherry maker from Spain’s Domeck Bodegas. Who is the best among them? Tune in to the National Geographic Channel on Nov. 27, 9 p.m. to find out.

National Geographic Channel has other ratings-grabbers lined up for this and coming months. There’s Mad Lab, an "amusing, irreverent series" that answers oddball science questions with off-the-wall experiments; there’s also Is it Real? which explores real-life mysteries and debunks myths; and ShowReal Asia, which showcases the latest works of Asian documentary filmmakers.

"What makes our channel different from other documentary channels is that we’re granted exclusive access – to the Pentagon, or inside Air Force One, or to a Rolling Stones concert – because of the credibility of the National Geographic name," says Richard Silaraks, senior manager of Distribution and Network Development for National Geographic Channel Asia. "We don’t feature speculation, and every show goes through at least 30 hours of rigorous fact-checking."

And while National Geographic Channel usually plays it straight (not unlike the magazine), you can rely on accuracy, access and a refreshing lack of controversy in its content: the channel tries to avoid any religious or political content that might adversely affect tourism.

Ultimately, one of the pleasures of National Geographic magazine is its diversity: you never know what part of the world the magazine will touch down upon in each issue, which may be why my grandfather dug it so much. Same goes with the TV channel, for the most part.

And who doesn’t want to know what it’s like to be backstage at the FIFA Cup or onboard Air Force One?

I’m sure my grandfather, if he were alive to sit here and join me in a glass of Bellagio, could relate.

National Geographic Channel’s Inside airs Monday nights at 9 p.m.