Article: 'SIDEWAYS' PUT CHILL ON MERLOT\ SALES SOURED AFTER MOVIE QUIP.(Living)

Byline: Michael Franz The Washington Post

Live by the fad, die by the fad.

That could conceivably go down as the postmortem assessment of the Merlot Boom, which began in the 1990s for largely fortuitous reasons and is now threatened by a stroke of bad fortune: a profane slur leveled against merlot by the lead character in the movie "Sideways."

Fads can be tricky to explain, but the Merlot Boom can be dated precisely to Nov. 17, 1991. On that date, CBS' "60 Minutes" aired a segment entitled "The French Paradox" suggesting that wine -- particularly red wine -- might help ward off heart disease. During the ensuing four weeks, red wine sales in ...

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