WINE TV ADS III

While we're rummaging through YouTube to find old wine ads, we might as well devote a page to a series of commercials which was warmly embraced back in the '80s and is still fondly remembered today.

Bartles and Jaymes Wine Coolers were hawked by a pair of homespun "winemakers," Frank Bartles and Ed Jaymes.  The pair were reportedly loosely based on Ernest and Julio Gallo themselves.  The 30-second spots were comedic in nature and always ended with the Frank Bartles character saying, "Thank you for your support."  In fact, it was Frank who said everything.  I don't remember Ed ever having a spoken line.

E & J Gallo still produce the wine coolers and malt beverages that make up their Bartles & Jaymes line of products.  Nowadays, they come in a whole slew of flavors, too, like Blue Hawaiian, Mojito and Sangria.

So, crack open a wine cooler, sit back and enjoy some bona-fide 1980s television.

Bartles and Jaymes Ad 1 

Bartles and Jaymes Ad 2

Bartles and Jaymes Ad 3

Bartles and Jaymes Ad 4

Bartles and Jaymes Ad 5

Bartles and Jaymes spoof on Conan O'Brien in 1994

WINE TV ADS II

Let's stroll down memory lane again and check out some more of those wonderful TV ads for wine - or wine coolers, as is the case today.

My memory of the 1980s is somewhat vague - and I like it that way - but I would figure these Seagram's Golden Wine Cooler commercials to be from the latter part of that glittering decade.

The ads feature a very young Bruce Willis moonlighting as a spokesman for wine coolers.  He was a very hot property as a TV star back then, and I understand he made millions of dollars doing this series of commercials.


In these spots,


Willis talks:

Seagram's Golden Wine Coolers 1


Willis sings:

Seagrams Golden Wine Coolers 2


and Willis dances:

Seagram's Golden Wine Coolers 3

WINE TV ADS

The golden age of television wine advertising - for me, anyway - began in the 1970s with the series of commercials which utilized Orson Welles as the spokesman for Paul Masson Wine.  Welles' girth so filled the TV tube there was barely room for the glass of wine, about which he pronounced that Paul Masson would "sell no wine before its time."

Welles apparently would drink no Paul Masson wine at anytime, and he reportedly was fired from his cushy spokesman gig after announcing just that on a TV talk show.

Thanks to the modern miracle of YouTube, we can go back in time and see some of these again, as well as some rather embarrassing outtakes in which Welles appears to have consumed a bit too much of the product.



Paul Masson Wine TV Ad - featuring Orson Welles 
Paul Masson Champagne TV Ad - featuring Orson Welles

Paul Masson TV Ad outtakes - featuring Orson Welles