For one glorious week in 1981, Honky Tonk Freeway played on America's silver screens. Then, people read the reviews. Uh-oh. It's about a small Florida town that gets bypassed by the new freeway. Everyone in town tries to help turn the place into a tourist attraction which will lure people off the highway to spend money. Their misadventures make up the bulk of the script.
The brains behind this bomb was a British man who admitted he didn't know much about America. So he sunk more than $10 million of someone's money into making a comedy about America. Go figure. I wonder where he's summering now.
Obviously, we're going with Florida wine here, and that's harder than it sounds. There's not that much of it. The Florida Winery has plenty of wines made from all sorts of fruit, but very few made from grapes. They make a Cabernet Sauvignon, from grapes that no doubt come from somewhere else. Florida Man probably loves it. Their website boasts "Free shipping over $100!" If you can drink $100 worth of this wine, you deserve free shipping. Blackcherry Pinot Noir is shortened to "Blache," which may also be the sound you make when choking it down. Believe it or not, they get $20 for it.
The road couldn't be more inhospitable than in the Australian 2015 film Mad Max: Fury Road, the fourth film in the string of Mad Max movies. To describe the scenario merely as post-apocalyptic makes it seem less than it is, like it's just an unusually hot day. It's oppressive just to think about the unrelenting bleakness of a life in which water and gasoline are the only concerns. Thankfully, we get to worry about water, gasoline, and which wine to have with which movie.
Charlize Theron brings a feminist touch to the Mad Max series, as an able replacement for the male kingpins of past episodes. This movie garnered some critical praise and ten Oscar noms, winning six.
Certainly, an Australian wine is proper here - even though there is a German Riesling which inexplicably bears the name Mad Max. Penfolds is the choice, their Max's Shiraz sells for just $25. By the way, it's a nod to winemaker Max Schubert, not the movie series.
Wild Boys of the Road, from 1933, is a teen movie of the most depressing kind. The kind from the Great Depression, in fact. A group of kids wind up in dire straits and jump a train to try and find a better life in hoboville. There's no better life there. It actually gets worse before it gets better, with rape, murder and a disfiguring accident. But hang in there, it does get better, eventually.
The year this movie was made, the national nightmare of Prohibition was repealed. However, most wineries had been forced to board up the windows if they couldn't swing a deal making sacramental wine. That was the only booze legally being made for those dark 13 years. And a winery in Los Angeles stayed open thanks to the blood of Christ, simulated as it may have been.
Back in the day, the San Antonio Winery vineyards were right around the winery building - steps from the L.A. River, just a cork's throw from Chavez Ravine. Now, the grapes come from their vineyards in Napa Valley, Monterey County and Paso Robles. The winery is still just southeast of Dodger Stadium. Depression or no depression, the Riboli family not only survived, they thrived.
You can hardly drive anywhere these days without seeing a billboard advertising their Stella Rosa brand, wine made in Italy and brought to our shores in big ships. San Simeon brings a taste of Paso Robles to the table and Windstream comes from the Santa Lucia Highlands. All the wines carry the thread of Depression Era America through them. Lift a glass to the teenaged hobos of Wild Boys of the Road. And to the Riboli family.
Follow Randy Fuller on X and BlueSky
