His riotous story of two buddies on a wine-and-women odyssey intoxicated the world. As Sideways hits the stage, Rex Pickett recalls how he went from debt-ridden divorcee to the toast of Hollywood

In 1998, my life was in the proverbial Dixie dumpster. I was living in Santa Monica in a rent-controlled house. I was dead broke. My indie feature film career had been poleaxed. My wife, who produced and acted in those films, and I had parted company. My mother had suffered a massive stroke. A larcenous younger brother had swooped down to steal what was left of my meagre trust fund. I had a novel that had been doing the rounds of the New York publishing world, to no avail. Messengers started pounding on my door at 6am to serve me lawsuits on old debts.

In short, if I could have afforded a gun I would have shot myself. Instead, I thought, this is a good time to alchemise my destitute and despairing life into, uh, er, ahem … well, writers are like thieves: we’re always working.

West End play raises a glass to Sideways, after it shone a spotlight on pinot noir Read more

Long story, but I had fallen in love with wine, particularly one variety: pinot noir. Why that over cabernet or syrah or viognier or riesling? To me, it seemed an ethereal grape. When sourced from great vineyards, when vinified with care, it spoke to me like Lorelei of the Lakes. In my lowly state, I had not fallen in love with a woman who was going to be the answer to all my problems. I had fallen in love with a grape – a grape that drove me to lyrical heights.



I started attending tastings. It was my only social outlet. I met wine geeks for whom the drink was almost a religion. I related to their passion. The Saturday afternoon tastings at Epicurus in Santa Monica are now legendary. A Brit named Julian Davies worked the floor peddling wine. Julian opened bottles I could never have afforded and taught me much of what I know about wine. Through him, I began to understand that the knowledge surrounding wine was a bottomless ocean that could never be mastered.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘This is heaven’ … Sideways, with Paul Giamatti on right. Photograph: Merie W Wallace/Fox Searchlight Pictures/Handou/Reuters

This wasn’t just an alcoholic beverage anodyne to a miserable life. This was a world of mystery, inhabited by artisans who were in it for the love of the final product: a wine, when made right, could make you levitate, transport you to another world, hoist you to heights of, well, poetry. It set my imagination spinning.

Back then, the Santa Ynez Valley was a little known wine region north of Santa Barbara. Maybe 50 wineries – now more than 250. Very little pinot noir had been planted in the 90s when I started sojourning up there, first to play golf, then to get familiar with the wines. I loathed Los Angeles and the cruel film industry that had brought me so much misery. So I would throw my golf clubs in the car and take off. Soon, instead of golfing, I went wine tasting. I hung out at the Hitching Post restaurant and befriended local winemakers. My fascination deepened. I discovered small, ramshackle tasting rooms in this sylvan paradise a mere two hours from the horrors of LA, and I thought: “This is heaven.”

On one trip, I brought along my friend Roy Gittens, an electrician on my failed second film. We went wine tasting. I made him laugh. Tasting room after tasting room. More wine. And some golf. And ostrich and pinot at the Hitching Post. At some point during that trip, he suggested I write a screenplay about guys who go wine-tasting. Galvanised, I wrote a screenplay called Two Guys on Wine. I didn’t like it. There was something about it that didn’t work. The rejection letters on my novel continued to pour in.

My ex-wife read the manuscript and said: 'Burn this – it will end your career'

Meanwhile, my publishing agent had come out from New York to Los Angeles to be a book-to-film agent. I had started to write a short story about the Saturday tastings and the wild times with Julian and the group. It was written in the first person, from the standpoint of one Miles Raymond, and related an afternoon where things, well, degenerate into a brawl.

When I got to the end of the story, I stood up and exclaimed out loud to the wall: “Wow, Two Guys on Wine will be a novel, not a screenplay. It will be a wine-soaked journey where everything that could go wrong will go wrong.” All their midlife crises – Miles’s inability to sell his novel, his friend’s upcoming nuptials – will be the spine upon which my characters will hold the reins, as if trying to stay on a bucking bronco.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘I got to pour high-end pinot!’ … Rex Pickett at rehearsals. Photograph: Pamela Raith

Although my book would be filled with depression, despair and sadness (because that’s where my life was), I knew no one would want to read it – unless I made it funny! The greatest wines are those with the perfect balance of acidity and fruit, and my novel would combine those elements. Galvanised, I wrote Two Guys on Wine in nine weeks in an absolute conflagration of creative oblivion. I forgot who I was. I poured in everything: my divorce, my destitution, my failed writing career, my loneliness, my friendship with Roy, and … my newfound love for wine, especially the singularly mysterious pinot noir.

When I was done, I felt depressed. I had lived the journey in my imagination, and that was such a wonderful feeling. I had, through the power of words, found a way to make myself laugh, cry and see things about myself that I didn’t know. My agent went nuts for it. My ex-wife, owner of an Academy Award for a short film I wrote, hated it and told me in no uncertain terms: “Burn it. It will end your career.” “But Barbara,” I said, “I have no career.”

When Alexander Payne’s film of my book came out in 2004, Merlot went from 20% of the red wine market in the US to a grim 7% because of one line uttered by Miles, played by Paul Giamatti, and pinot noir shot up from 1% to almost 8%. Wine appreciation and tasting became hip. The Santa Ynez Valley, where the film was shot, witnessed a flood of tourism that has not abated. I saw little of the spoils, but I didn’t care. What mattered to me was the validation, the more than 350 awards we won – including the Academy Award for best adapted screenplay. It was a heady time.

Several years later, I was approached about doing a theatrical adaptation for a small venue in Santa Monica. I didn’t want to. I thought it would look like I was capitalising on a popular and fondly remembered film that, alas, could only now be enjoyed on DVD. Then I thought: after all the spotlight-hogging and credit-grabbing that had pushed me – and the novel I had suffered to write – to the periphery in a way that only Hollywood can, this could be a way to reclaim my intellectual property. Everywhere I went, I met people who didn’t know me, but if I mentioned Sideways, their eyes lit up. Something about it touched a nerve. I thought, why not? If it fails, well, I’m no stranger to failure!

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘The journey has only begun’ … Sideways rehearsals. Photograph: Pamela Raith

The play was staged at the 50-seat Ruskin Group theatre, in Santa Monica. It was directed by Amelia Mulkey, who had only staged one play. We gave three performances a week, and it ran for a record-shattering six months. I was at the theatre three nights a week for the entire run. I got more love there than in my entire childhood. I got to pour – for free! – high-end pinot noir from all over the world, liberally and profligately, in proper pinot noir stemware!

Soon, wine regions around the globe were clamouring for the play. Broadway was calling with its siren charms and dangerously high standards. But I wanted London. I had heard that its off West End scene was one of the most vibrant in the world. My play celebrated language, with Miles’s surreal soliloquies, and the comedy felt rowdily British. As I write this, I have now been in London for less than a week. We have begun rehearsals.

One day – with no money and hitting 40 as if it was a wall and I was steering a rickety old car without brakes – I sat down and wrote a novel, a two-decade-long saga of heartbreak, failure and triumph. I helped transform the wine industry and inspired millions of people to seek out what Miles discovered in his beloved pinot noir. I wanted to celebrate that feeling everyone who has fallen in love with wine knows so intimately. And I have a sneaking feeling the journey has only just begun.

• Sideways is at St James theatre, London, 26 May-9 July. Box office: 0844-264 2140.