Blind Ambition

Overview

When Dolly Parton sang about pouring herself a cup of ambition in the giddily catchy 80s hit '9 to 5' — the song that accompanied a film of the same name four decades back, now echoes in a stage musical as well and will never, ever get old — she wasn't talking about wine. But Zimbabwean quartet Joseph Dhafana, Tinashe Nyamudoka, Marlvin Gwese and Pardon Taguzu have lived up to those lyrics one glass of top-notch vino at a time, despite not drinking alcohol as Pentecostal Christians. Clearly, these men have quite the story to tell. It starts with fleeing their homeland under Robert Mugabe's rule, and then sees them each make new homes at considerable risk in South Africa, where they all also eventually found themselves working with the grape. In the process, they discovered a knack for an industry they mightn't have ever even dreamed of contemplating entering otherwise — and, in 2017, they took Zimbabwe's first-ever team to the World Wine Blind Tasting Championships in Burgundy, France.

In the words of the always-great and ever-quotable Parton again, Joseph, Tinashe, Marlvin and Pardon waited for their ship to come in, and for the tide to turn and all roll their way. '9 to 5' doesn't actually have a single thing to do with Blind Ambition, the film that splashes through the Zimbabwean sommeliers' story, but their against-the-odds journey is equally infectious and uplifting. The Australian-made documentary about the foursome has also been likened to another on-screen underdog tale, this time about Black men seeking glory in a field that isn't typically associated with their country of birth. Blind Ambition isn't the wine version of Cool Runnings for numerous reasons — it hasn't been fictionalised (although it likely will be at some point) and it isn't a comedy, for starters — but the comparison still pithily sums up just how rousing this true story proves. The reality is far more profound than a Disney flick, of course.

Making their second wine-focused doco of the past decade, Warwick Ross and Rob Coe — the former the co-director of 2013's Red Obsession, the latter its executive producer, and both sharing helming credits here — decant emotion aplenty from the moving and inspiring Blind Ambition. It flows freely from Joseph, Tinashe, Marlvin and Pardon's plights, which the film begins to drip out individually, harking back to before the quartet had even met, then blends together. Getting across the border was especially harrowing for Joseph, for instance, while ensuring that his new life honours his parents back home is particularly important for Pardon. Overcoming poverty and adversity echoes through their stories, as does the hope that their newfound affinity for wine brings — including via Tinashe's desire to plant vines on his grandfather's land one day.

From those histories grows a keen eagerness to turn vino into their futures, and amid those dreams sits the World Wine Blind Tasting Championships. The activity that gives the competition its name is serious business; the first word isn't slang for getting black-out drunk or even just  knocking back drinks to the thoroughly sozzled stage of inebriation, but describes how teams sample an array of wines without knowing what's rolling over their palates.  Every national squad, all with four people apiece, is given 12 drops. From the six red and six white varieties, they must pick everything they can just by sipping — the grape, country, name, producer and vintage — to earn points. And, they also need to spit out the answers quickly, within two minutes of taking a taste. Yes, it's an event that you need to train for. No, it doesn't involve getting sloshed.

As stressed verbally and visually throughout the doco, there's a specific — and very white — crowd for blind wine-tasting. It's also a pursuit marked by wealth and privilege, and by the access to a vast selection of different wines that springs far more easily when you come from or have access to both. Accordingly, Team Zimbabwe instantly stands out, not that its members ever let that stand between them and their next tasting glass. While Blind Ambition could've just stuck to the feel-good angle that gushes from Joseph, Tinashe, Marlvin and Pardon's efforts as outsiders within this insular realm, it smartly dives further, knowing that anything else would be too superficial and tokenistic. Accordingly, while the film celebrates their achievements, it also ensures that the racial and class divides that are as inherent to this part of the wine world — and to the wine world in general — as grapes fermented into alcohol remain as prominent as a red wine stain on a white tablecloth.

That makes Blind Ambition a multi-layered movie with something to say as well as a heartwarming true tale to share, aka the kind of real-life situation that documentarians fantasise about. Heralding diversity and exposing its historical absence rank high among Team Zimbabwe's feats, and the footage that follows them training in South Africa and navigating the competition in Burgundy speaks volumes about the Eurocentric and money-driven industry they've plunged into. Competitive blind wine-tasting is a sport that requires coaches, too, and developments arise when both South African coach Jean Vincent Ridon and French wine expert Denis Garret become involved. All the way through, however, Joseph, Tinashe, Marlvin and Pardon's contagious joy, pride and enthusiasm for the field, for competing at the Olympics of the wine world, for the fact that their journey has taken them from refugees to finding a new calling, and for opening up the world to African vino, is never anything less than resonant.

Like any standout plonk, wine or otherwise, Blind Ambition leaves viewers wanting more, though. Ross and Coe cover plenty in the film's 96 minutes, including postscript glimpses into the team's lives following their World Wine Blind Tasting Championships debut, but wishing for deeper notes at several stages along the way — the tension of the contest and its ins and outs, noticeably — is the prevailing aftertaste. While moderation is a wise approach to imbibing, parts of the film feel like just a sample themselves. It's still a delightful doco drop that lingers long on the cinematic palate, but another pour wouldn't go astray.