At a dinner for journalists at Brasserie 8 1 /2 on Monday, the guest of honor was a villain of the wine world. Or so Pomerol-bred Michel Rolland appeared to be in “Mondovino,” the controversial documentary by Jonathan Nossiter that opened two months ago in New York and is still the talk of wine circles. Called the “flying winemaker,” Mr. Rolland is the world’s best-known consulting oenologist, with more than 100 client wineries in 12 countries. In the film, which caused a bigger ruckus in France than in America, Mr. Rolland was demonized by Mr. Nossiter for globalizing the character of wine. From South Africa to Argentina, according to “Mondovino,” Mr. Rolland wields his laboratory-driven techniques to strip any and all sense of place, or what the French call terroir, from individual wines. What we get instead are uniformly ripe and smooth sips that are as sleekly innocuous as George Hamilton emerging from a tanning salon.

Mr. Rolland’s appearance, during a one-day visit to New York between winery consults in India and California, was ostensibly to present a brace of wines that bear his imprint. But surely he was also trying to repair the damage done by “Mondovino.” In the film, it’s hard to feel much sympathy for Mr. Rolland, who we first see in the rear seat of his chauffeured black Mercedes, cackling, smoking, smirking, and endlessly taking cell phone calls as he rolls through the vineyards of Bordeaux. He stops at client wineries just long enough to taste and spit out the still fermenting wines, and to bark orders to submissive winery staff and owners. One would not guess that Mr. Rolland hails from a modest wine-making family in Pomerol, the humblest of the top Bordeaux communes. If only he’d worn dirty jeans instead of a banker’s suit on the day he was filmed, we might have warmed to him just a bit.

Mr. Nossiter insisted on filming him that day, Mr. Rolland told me, even though it was during the peak harvest days of October. “I told him he couldn’t do it unless he came in the car with me. And it was a day of repetitions, because we were in Pomerol, where the properties are so close together. It looked like I always do the same thing over and over.” Mr. Rolland also noted that strict new French standards for drinking while driving (a maximum of .05% blood alcohol compared to the American limit of .08%), mean that a chauffeur is a necessity during 12-hour days of sampling hundreds of wines. “For my chauffeur, the film was great,” said Mr. Rolland with that familiar cackle. “In Bordeaux, people who never met him now say, ‘Wow, didn’t I see you in ‘Mondovino?'”

Mr. Nossiter “seemed like a nice fellow, “Mr. Rolland said. Mr. Rolland’s wife, Danielle, also an oenologist, agreed: “Yes, he was intelligent and charming. He introduced himself as a sommelier making a film.”

Interviewed in Le Monde, the multilingual filmmaker, who did indeed once work as a sommelier in New York, indicated that he was happy to be taken for harmless wherever he filmed. His subjects “received me as a sort of press flack and not as a filmmaker or journalist. They felt sheltered from suspicion. … so they were rattled” when they saw themselves in the film, he said.

What rattled Danielle Rolland is that the filmmaker “kept using the same bits over and over – my husband on the phone, the Mercedes, the laugh. He presented the film as a documentary, but it is a polemic. It was a dishonest use of editing.” Comparing “Mondovino” to the surprise hit “Sideways,” Mr. Rolland said: “In ‘Sideways,’ they are always drinking wine and talking about it. But in ‘Mondovino,’ nobody enjoys a glass of wine. That should tell you something.”

When I interviewed Mr. Nossiter on the eve of his film’s New York opening in March, he claimed a surprising source of inspiration for his film: his brother Adam’s book, titled “Hotel Algeria,” an examination of French memory of the Vichy years. “The book is about how, after the war, fabrications and delusions impinged on the truth of how people really behaved,” Mr. Nossiter said. “My film is also about the notion of transmission – what we inherit, what we pass on. It’s linked to wine because the notion of terroir has been maligned as a reactionary idea used by old fools to hide fault in their wines. But the threat to the identity of wine, as expressed by enemies of terroir, is a threat to the identity of all our lives.”

Mr. Rolland’s realm is oenology, not philosophy. “I’d rather have globalization than undrinkable wines,” he said, as the wines of eight properties owned or influenced by him were presented at Brasserie 8 1 /2.”You journalists are unlucky because you have to taste the globalization of my wines. Certainly, it will be a very boring tasting. Sorry for that.” And he cackled. The proprietors who have hired Mr. Rolland must be cackling, too. His hand has caused their wines to leap in price.

Of the six wines we tasted, all but one were from Bordeaux, vintage 2001. The Rolland imprint marked each one; they were fully ripened and faultlessly smooth. Well-judged fruit lingered in the mouth. Tannins were present but did not bite the gums. And yet, as the notes below indicate, the wines did not taste alike. Even Mr. Nossiter might have agreed that terroir had survived the touch of the consultant he loves to hate.

Wines Presented by Mr. Rolland

CHATEAU CLOS DE LA TOUR 2001, BORDEAUX SUPERIOR ($15.99) Pleasant and innocuous, it lacks concentration or a distinctive trait. This may be a Rolland wine, but it’s what I’d expect to find at budget-price French railway station cafeterias.

CHATEAU LE BOSQ 2001, ST. ESTEPHE ($34.99) A bigger mouthful of wine than the above, with a meaty core and good persistence. But still not a wine to remember the morning after.

CHATEAU LA GARDE 2001, PESSAC-LEOGNAN ($34.99) Before coming under the Rolland hand, this was a gentle, reliable, mid-level label. Now it’s become denser, with firm tannins and a core of hard-charging fruit. Mr. Rolland explained the property’s gravelly soil is underlain with clay, producing a lip-smacking rather than elegant style more typical of a soil of gravel and sand.

CHATEAU BELGRAVE 2001, ST.-LAURENT ($38.99) This is what classic Bordeaux is all about, with every element in balance: fruit, acids, tannins, and a touch of earthiness to create that elusive thing called complexity.

ESSENCE DE DOURTHE 2001, BORDEAUX SUPERIOR ($69.99) A composite of the best lots of the four wines above, which is permitted only to carry the appellation of the least of them. “My specialty is blending,” Mr. Rolland said, and he shows off his skills well.The wine has a lively, spicy aroma, and intense tobacco-y flavors.

CHATEAU LE BON PASTEUR 2001, POMEROL ($59.95) Rich and full with meltingly sweet cherry fruit and the plumpness of ripe merlot from soil where it does best. A wine I want to own and drink.

CHATEAU FONTENIL 2001, FRONSAC ($29.99) The Rollands live here, and produce a wine that could not be more different than Bon Pasteur, which they also own: It’s a wine all about bones rather than flesh, solid, dark-fruited, and deep. Stern wine for keeping.

CLOS DE LOS SIETE 2003, MENDOZA, ARGENTINA ($15.99) So different from the French wines. Active aromas of boysenberry and pomegranate. Similar and silky flavors in the mouth. This is a nimble interpretation of Malbec from a new vineyard that Mr. Rolland, one of seven owners, says “is bigger than all of Pomerol.” I’m not sure how often I’d want to come back to this wine, but it does have a striking flavor profile.