10 Best Booze-Guzzling Movie Characters

Depressed writer and wine enthusiast Miles goes on a roadtrip through Santa Barbara’s lush wine country as a ‘wedding gift’ to his lustful friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church). So begins a hilarious tale of midlife crisis and finding new love and laughs as they swill themselves through every grape on offer. Giamatti gives his best performance to date.

A passionate oenophile with thinly disguised alcoholism and depression, Miles uses wine to deal with loss - his novelist career, his wife, and now his best friend. Wine holds Miles together until it all spills out the sides. Whether pleading with Jack that they "are not f*cking drinking Merlot!," or waxing lyrical on the delicacies of his beloved Pinot Noir, it all culminates in the fabulous scene of him drinking the prized vintage, a 1961 Chateau Cheval Blanc out of a Styrofoam cup.

Miles’ character uncovers the pretentiousness of wine drinking, and how it’s all really drunkenness by any other name.