EVEN in the hyperbole-driven world of Hollywood, few would have predicted that a low-budget comedy about an unhappily divorced teacher and an oversexed actor would move America’s $20 billion-a-year wine market.

Yet that is exactly what the Oscar-winning Sideways has done, much to the despair of vineyard owners who are growing the merlot grape.

The film’s hero, a schoolmaster and wine snob played by Paul Giamatti, loathes merlot, America’s most popular red wine for the past 15 years, and loves pinot noir, its hitherto less favoured rival.

On a tour of wineries near Los Angeles with his friend, he falls in love with a student, played by Virginia Madsen, telling her that the pinot’s flavours are “just the most haunting and brilliant and thrilling and subtle and . . . ancient on the planet”. He refuses to drink “any f****** merlot”.

Between October, when Sideways was released in America, and January, when it picked up its 81st award from film critics, merlot sales dipped by 2% in the western United States. Sales of pinot noir throughout the country rose by 16% and many drinkers have switched from French to Californian pinots.

The film has also brought tourists in record numbers to the Santa Ynez vineyards where it was made. ACNielsen, the business analysts, suspect that merlot may now see a bigger drop in popularity as film-goers seek out the “Sideways experience”.

Wine wholesalers are gathering their pinot bottles under posters of Californian wine country and offering guided tours of the wineries.

Britain appears to be sipping from the same glass: Sainsbury’s reports a 20% surge in pinot sales, while Tesco and Oddbins — which is running a Sideways promotion — say that their sales have increased by 10% since the film opened here five weeks ago.

The downside of the phenomenon, which has prompted a rush for spring wine-tasting classes, is that according to some experts, drinkers may end up paying over the odds for an under-par bottle of wine.

“Pinot is a tough grape to get right,” said an expert at the respected Duck Blind wine shop in Los Angeles. “You are better off with a cheap, reliable merlot than a cheap, unreliable pinot.”

Miles, the gloomy, middle-aged protagonist played by Giamatti, would beg to differ. He spends part of the film lecturing Jack, the soon- to-be-married actor played by Thomas Haden Church, on the weaknesses of the fruity merlot and the virtues of the lighter pinot noir grape.

Before dinner with two single women, played by Madsen and Sandra Oh, the wife of the Sideways director Alexander Payne, Miles warns: “If anyone orders merlot, I’m leaving. I am not going to the dark side.”

Later, with Madsen’s character, Maya, he explains his love for pinot noir in a tender moment when they are also revealing themselves.

Miles describes the grape as “thin-skinned, temperamental and hard to grow, needing constant attention”, but when it works it’s “haunting, brilliant and thrilling”. Maya replies that a bottle of wine “is actually alive. And it’s constantly evolving and gaining complexity. That is, until it peaks and then it begins its steady, inevitable decline”.

The film won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay last weekend.

Wine sellers across America have been delighted at the surge of interest in the higher-priced pinot noir.

“People have been coming in and asking for the Sideways grape, even if they don’t quite remember its name,” said an Ohio shop manager.

At the Sanford Winery — where grapes are not only grown but also turned into wine — tourists recognise Chris Burroughs, the manager, as the expert in the film who serves Miles and Jack their first glass of pinot.

Burroughs — who describes Sideways as a “twisted love song to wine” — says harvests are selling out in record time. “Visitors are buying them up by the crate and putting them aside for Sideways parties,” he said.

Indeed, a shortage of Californian pinot may be looming. The film-makers could not find enough for the premiere of the film in Tokyo this weekend, so had to send over crates of pinot from Oregon instead.

The pinot frenzy is expected to intensify next month when the DVD is released in America with extras including a guide to the area where it was shot.

Francis Ford Coppola, film-maker and grower of acclaimed merlot and cabernet franc varieties in California’s Napa Valley, was recently asked about the Sideways effect.

He reportedly grunted and said: “I will drink pinot noir, I love the best, but I will not grow it. It’s just too tricky.”

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