The film was written by William Goldman and produced by Alan Brown and Phil Kellogg.

Three other interested parties converge on the valuable rarity: a Greek billionaire, to whom Margaret's unscrupulous brother has independently sold the bottle; an amoral French scientist, who believes it contains the secret to a rejuvenation formula that he will kill to obtain; and a murderous thug, who wants to sell it himself.

Sir Mason offers the bottle in private auction to both the legitimate "owners", but they are outbid by Oliver, who is revealed as a multimillionaire adventurer scientist.

William Goldman said he was inspired to write the film by his love of red wine, and a desire to do a romantic adventure comedy thriller in the vein of Charade (1963).

He wanted to set it in the most romantic places he knew (London, the Scottish highlands, the French Riviera) which meant it became a chase focusing around a bottle of wine.

Goldman created a wine, the most valuable in history, making it a large bottle for dramatic purposes.

In the late 1980s Goldman wrote two successful films for Castle Rock Productions, The Princess Bride and Misery.

[1] Lead roles went to Penelope Ann Miller, coming off Kindergarten Cop and Timothy Daly, then the star of TV's Wings.

He's got a lot of strings-he's tough, resourceful, funny, irreverent, he has a skewed view of things and a few emotional walls that he keeps up.

"[1] Goldman says the film previewed poorly, which he attributed to the audience's lack of enthusiasm for red wine.

A new opening sequence was added where the male hero says he hates red wine and has to be dragged to a tasting but he says it did not work.

I mean, on paper, it was a William Goldman script, Peter Yates directing, it was a Castle Rock production, it had a good budget—and the movie just did not work.

There was also the added novelty that it was released the weekend of the Rodney King riots, where every white person in the United States was locked in their safe room.

[7] Dave Kehr of Chicago Tribune said, "The characters are completely undeveloped, the action wholly arbitrary and the continuity non-existent.

"[8] Louis Black of the Austin Chronicle gave it one star out of five, saying, "This one should pretty much sink without a trace, so I hate to even stir the waters by detailing how inept it is.

"[9] Rita Kempley of The Washington Post said, "(Screenwriter) Goldman ... just happens to be (director) Yates's neighbor in the south of France.