Blood Of The Vines - Star Struck

Pairing‌ ‌wine‌ ‌with‌ ‌movies!‌  ‌See‌ ‌the‌ ‌trailers‌ ‌and‌ ‌hear‌ ‌the‌ ‌fascinating‌ ‌commentary‌ ‌for‌ ‌these‌ ‌movies‌ ‌and‌ ‌many‌ ‌more‌ ‌at‌ ‌Trailers‌ ‌From‌ ‌Hell.‌ This week, we will pair wines with three films that put stars in our eyes. 

I have a friend who puts on wine tasting events. He calls his shows, "Stars of" events. Stars of Napa Valley, Stars of Santa Barbara, Stars of Pinot Noir, Stars of Temecula. I think he may have missed that last one, actually. The point is, and there is one, that wine has tremendous star power. It is seductive and everyone wants a piece of it. Let's find out which wines we can pair with Stars of the Silver Screen.

From 1968 comes Star! I have to make sure the title of the movie is the last word in the sentence, so that the punctuation mark is in the right place. It is a biopic, featuring a star playing a star. Julie Andrews has the role of noted stage actress Gertrude Lawrence. She had a life of laughs, loves and liver cancer. You know you were living the high life when your organs throw up their imaginary hands and say, "uncle!"

La Maialina makes a Super Tuscan red blend called Gertrude which sells for under $20, and while I don't think Lawrence would have turned it down, she probably would have preferred something a little livelier. Let's pop the cork on a sparkling wine from, of all places, Michigan. M. Lawrence makes a brut rosé called Sex, which I'm sure would have met with Gertrude's approval. 

The version of A Star Is Born which hit the screens in 1976 was a remake of the 1937 original. It was the second of three remakes, but who's counting? The story has Janet Gaynor, er, Judy Garland, er, Lady Gaga… I'm sorry, I've got my remakes mixed. The well-trod story has Barbara Streisand as the up-and-coming singer who hooks up with a big star and passes him on his way down. 

There is a Barbara Streisand wine, a Chardonnay offered by Celebrity Cellars. The fact that it is a 1996 vintage is puzzling. Either they were incredibly judicious about doling it out over the decades or it didn't sell well at all. You can find out which it is for $40. Or, you can pick up a wine from Barbara's neighborhood, Malibu. Saddlerock Estate Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon is available in the 2013 and 2014 vintages for less than $60.

Battle Beyond the Stars is a 1980 space opera. Of course, the term space opera refers to stories told in outer space in the same way horse opera refers to westerns. There are no arias, coloraturas or librettos here, but every movie set has to have a prima donna on it somewhere. 

The movie reworks the story of The Magnificent Seven, which itself reworked The Seven Samurai. So this tale has come from ancient Japan, through the American West, and into outer space. Try doing that with Citizen Kane.

The film provided big breaks for James Cameron, John Sayles and Bill Paxton, although Paxton's contribution was working on the set as a carpenter. Early days, yes.

A futuristic movie deserves a futuristic wine. Future Perfect Wine is located in Los Olivos, and they make wines from some of Santa Barbara County's best vineyards. The 2022 Dry Riesling hails from Gainey Vineyard in the Santa Ynez Valley and sells for $45.

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A Mondavi Wine We Can Drink Every Day

Mondavi - to a wine lover, the name connotes California. Headquartered in the Napa Valley, Robert Mondavi Winery stands as a beacon of what big time wine can be.  Mondavi wines usually command a high price, as high as nearly $300, but this 2021 Mondavi Private Selection Cabernet Sauvignon gives us a taste of Mondavi for less than ten bucks.

The California appellation on the label shows that there were more than one region from which the grapes came. The estate property in Napa Valley is famous for the quality fruit it produces, but they do source grapes from other well-respected growers along the California coast.

It is a dark purple wine, with a nose featuring ripe blackberries and cassis, vanilla, tar, cigar and clove. The palate is quite nice, with cherry, blueberry and raspberry flavors draped with a bit of oak spice and offering a silky set of tannins. I paired it with a rib eye and used it in my skillet mushrooms. The wife gave me a big thumbs up, so I know it worked. 

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A Bargain Chardonnay From Santa Barbara County

Magistrate Wines are a bargain brand, a supermarket wine. It is available, usually, for less than $10 and the company has a small line of wines - a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignons from Napa Valley, Sonoma County and Alexander Valley, a Paso Robles Merlot, a Lodi Zinfandel and a Santa Barbara County Chardonnay.

Santa Barbara County is, I think, an unheralded wine region. It does not get the same sort of play that Napa Valley or Burgundy gets, but the wines from that large AVA are typically excellent. They are also nearly always a tad expensive, so it was with great curiosity that I plucked the bottle of white wine from the bottom shelf at Walmart. 

One of Magistrate's winemakers, Kip Lorenzetti, calls the company's creations "unpretentious and elegant." He has hit the nail on the head, at least for the Chardonnay.

There is little information on specifics available, but the label tells us that the grapes are from Santa Barbara County and the alcohol level sits at 13.5% abv. It cost about $5. There is an effect of oak.

This yellow wine has a somewhat muted nose of citrus, minerals and apricots, with just a hint of vanilla. The palate is far more expressive, showing a beautiful array of lemons, limes, tangerines and green apples. The oak treatment is nicely done, spicy but not over-the-top buttery. The label had me hoping that the wine inside the bottle would be good, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was much better than good. This wine is not simply inexpensive - it's a bargain.

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Blood Of The Vines - Funny, You Don't Look Noirish

Pairing‌ ‌wine‌ ‌with‌ ‌movies!‌  ‌See‌ ‌the‌ ‌trailers‌ ‌and‌ ‌hear‌ ‌the‌ ‌fascinating‌ ‌commentary‌ ‌for‌ ‌these‌ ‌movies‌ ‌and‌ ‌many‌ ‌more‌ ‌at‌ ‌Trailers‌ ‌From‌ ‌Hell.‌ This week, we will pair wines with three movies from the film noir department. 

Noir is a word which is near and dear to the hearts of movie lovers and wine lovers alike. Film noir puts the accent on that which is dark and maybe a bit mysterious. The movies in this category are generally moody, brooding, temperamental sorts. They aren't always black and white but they always depict a world that is made up of shadows.

In wine, noir is most commonly associated with the Pinot Noir grape. These wines are generally moody, brooding, temperamental sorts, too. They depict a wine world that is dark and mysterious, but they often lean into elegance. 

In Sideways, Miles describes Pinot Noir as "thin-skinned and temperamental," a grape that needs "constant care and attention," one that can't grow just anywhere or be grown by just anybody. Of course he is actually describing himself. 

You can also find Grenache Noir, although the noir there is used only to differentiate it from Grenache Blanc. Baco Noir is a North American hybrid grape from which wine is made largely in the Northeast and Canada. 

Johnny Eager is a 1941 film noir of the finest kind, full of treachery, lies and lust, coming at you from every angle. There is even a cruel twist of fate thrown in, just to underscore that what happened simply had to happen. That's film noir, Jake. Robert Taylor, Lana Turner and Van Heflin play off of each other like they were born to do so. 

A Pinot Noir to pair with Johnny Eager has to be as dark and brooding as the grape can get, with the slick panache of Taylor and the smoldering beauty of Turner. Migration Winery is in Napa but they drove south to pick grapes from the Bien Nacido Vineyard in Santa Maria. That patch of ground is as close you get to a grand cru vineyard in the US of A. Their 2016 Pinot goes for $75, but they have already sold out of a handful of vintages so don't wait.

2011's Drive features Ryan Gosling as a Hollywood Jack-of-all-trades, one of those trades being a getaway driver for bad guys. When Gosling was a teenage Mouseketeer, more people probably pegged him as the future star of La La Land and Barbie rather than a moody criminal cohort. So much for typecasting. He plays dark really well. As an added bonus, Albert Brooks finally gets to play a guy who gets nobody's sympathy. 

Drive Wines started as a hobby, in a garage in Sonoma County. They were not driving getaways in their spare time, they were too busy making wine. Their $38 Quan Vineyard Pinot Noir hails from Los Carneros grapes. Drive, a garage, CARneros, this is fitting together too perfectly. 

The Big Sleep has Bogie and Bacall in their 1946 noir splendor. Everyone in this movie is running from someone else, except of course hard-boiled private eye Philip Marlowe. He's probably the man you see when you look over your shoulder. Humphrey Bogart makes murder and intrigue look about as hard as leaning against a wall and flipping a coin. Lauren Bacall sings "And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine" with just the right amount of hair-flip I don't care. 

Try The Big Sleep Cocktail: cognac, champagne, sugar and a squeeze of lemon. I hear it's pretty good. But we need something a bit darker, don't we? Talbott's Sleepy Hollow Vineyard Pinot Noir brings the magic of the Santa Lucia Highlands to us for a bit less than $40 a bottle. That AVA name, Santa Lucia Highlands, always makes me want to hear "The Happy Wanderer" on bagpipes, even though I know it's in Monterey County.

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Mendoza Malbec

Back in the 19th century, cuttings of Malbec grape vines were brought to Argentina. They thrived there. Malbec is now the king of grapes in the South American country. If a Mendoza winery can afford to age only one grape in oak, it will be Malbec.

The 2021 Diseño Malbec is a young, simple wine but a tasty one which is lacking a bit in the area of tannic grip. Alcohol hits only 13% abv and it sells for less than $10.

This wine is medium dark purple with a very youthful appearance around the rim. The nose displays plenty of ripe dark fruit, mainly blueberries, augmented by oak spice. Vanilla, clove, coffee, lavender and a hint of perfume. The palate has dark fruit as well, but an earthy savoriness accompanies it. Tannins are easy-going and the acidity is refreshing. This is a good match for a burger or hot dog or pizza, foods with which I typically don't want a red wine. This one is mellow enough to go along with them. 

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Why Is This Wine Mr. Pink?

This rosé wine comes from the Underground Wine Project, which began as a “collaboration between Washington winemakers Mark McNeilly of Mark Ryan Winery, Trey Busch and Jerry Solomon of Sleight of Hand Cellars. Their And Why Am I Mr. Pink? Is presented as a cult classic.

Mr. Pink is a 2021 Columbia Valley rosé wine which takes its name from Steve Buscemi's line in Reservoir Dogs. All the other criminals had a cool color name. The grapes are 58% Sangiovese and 42% Syrah.

Why is it pink? Because of skin contact in the winemaking process. A little less skin contact and it might have been Mr. White. A little more, Mr. Orange. A lot more, Mr. Purple. Alcohol resides at 12.5% abv and I paid $12 at Whole Foods Market.

This wine really shows more of a light copper color than pink. Its nose is full of ripe strawberries and an herbal note. On the palate, big time fruit again, this time featuring citrus. There is a strong mineral angle, too, and plenty of wonderful acidity. This will pair easily with the usual pink wine fare, but it will also be able to handle a pork chop or some sausage. 

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Blood Of The Vines - Getting Dark

Pairing‌ ‌wine‌ ‌with‌ ‌movies!‌  ‌See‌ ‌the‌ ‌trailers‌ ‌and‌ ‌hear‌ ‌the‌ ‌fascinating‌ ‌commentary‌ ‌for‌ ‌these‌ ‌movies‌ ‌and‌ ‌many‌ ‌more‌ ‌at‌ ‌Trailers‌ ‌From‌ ‌Hell.‌ This week, we will pair wines with three films dealing in darkness. 

Darkness is a hallmark of a good wine. Red wine, anyway. If you have a dark white wine, you may have a rosé. Or you may have one of Bill Pullman's Chardonnays from Bottle Shock. 

Red wines should be dark, I think, and the darker the better. That goes for the smell, too. Some folks don’t feel that a smell can be dark, but I disagree. Blackberry? Blueberry? Cassis? Pepper? All dark, and all perfectly good descriptors for perfectly good red wines. 

The 2019 film, Dark Waters, stars Mark Ruffalo, the guy who should play me in my biopic if Bill Pullman is unavailable. It covers the legal action after the discovery in the 1990s that DuPont was killing cattle with a dump of its toxic leftovers. Toxic leftovers is what we call the menu at the food truck down the street. 

This poisonous dreck was a byproduct of making Teflon, and was not only killing cows in West Virginia but also giving the good people of The Mountain State cancer. Teflon or not, the court challenges did stick, costing DuPont hundreds of millions of dollars. And that was back when hundreds of millions of dollars was real money.

For Dark Waters, we could look to West Virginia for a nice red wine, if it were more of a wine-friendly state. The top wineries in the WV do use some traditional wine grapes, but they rely a lot on varieties like Vidal Blanc and Noirette, when they aren't going with blackberries or vegetables. I am told the garlicky Kirkwood Appalachian Ramp Wine is great for cooking, but I'm going to let you find out about that.

 Let's pair Cosentino's The Dark, a $25 Lodi red wine described in the blurb as "dark and brooding," which also probably describes the mood of someone choking down a wine made from ramps. Or the boardroom at DuPont after Dark Waters hit the screens. 

The Dark Crystal is from 1982. This dark fantasy was directed by muppet masters Jim Henson and Frank Oz. It is one of those fantasy stories where every third word is a made-up person, thing, activity or place, so there is no making sense of it unless you buy into it and watch.

The action hinges around the Crystal of Truth, which is broken and needs to be fixed before the three suns merge. Leave it to some cute little animatronic Gelflings to save the world, whichever world it is that they are in. 

Pair Apothic Dark with The Dark Crystal, a red wine bearing the California appellation. If you've ever had the regular Apothic, you probably thought that was the dark one. Apothic Dark is frightfully dark, enough so that we can just go ahead and call it black. As in a black hole, as in no light gets through. As in the pot and the kettle are green with envy.

For those who feel that Westerns don't have nearly enough vampires in them, there is 1987's Near Dark. It features the late Bill Paxton, the guy who would have played me in my biopic if Mark Ruffalo and Bill Pullman were both unavailable. He gets a rare chance in this film to portray a psychotic vampire, no doubt the only such role on his IMDB page.

The movie-going public found a lot to like in the wedding of the Western and horror genres, with a little biker movie action thrown in for good measure. Near Dark was Kathryn Bigelow's debut as a director back in the '80s, when all things vampire were really hot. She has made some very popular films since then, including Point Break, The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty. 

For Near Dark, here is VDR - Very Dark Red. It's a Monterey County blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Petite Sirah. All those magical grapes for right around $20. And no one gets bitten on the neck. 

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An Italian Red From The Heel Of The Boot

The Susumaniello grape is a rarity. It is found growing only in the southern reaches of Italy, in Apulia, Puglia, the "heel of the boot" if you are looking at Italy on a map. It is a grape which is usually used for blending, but this bottling offers a full varietal version of it.

The 2021 Ruggero di Bardo Susumaniello came from Trader Joe's in a squatty bottle. As with many of the wines I have tried from that store, it is surprisingly good. Maybe I should stop being surprised after shopping at TJ's for decades. 

There is not a lot of information out there about this wine, or at least I didn't find much. It is reportedly aged in both steel tanks and oak barrels and it definitely shows the oak effect, although not to distraction. Alcohol sits at 4.5% abv and the bottle costs $12.

This wine is as dark as ink in the glass. It smells dark, too, with notes of black cherry, blackberry, clove, cinnamon, forest floor and hints of vanilla and cedar. The palate is bold and fruity, with cherry flavors hitting the tongue first. The sweet oak spice is enjoyable, not overdone. Tannins are firm and the wine has a good tannic grip. The overall feeling of sweetness is beautiful, but don’t expect a dessert wine. This is a truly enjoyable red wine at a truly affordable price. 

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Zinfandel Wine From Lodi and Amador County

The Bogle family has been farming in the California delta for six generations, 50 years now in the effort of growing wine grapes. Like a lot of farming families in the area, the started out selling their fruit to others. Then they got wise and started turning their grapes into wine themselves. 

Bogle's 2021 Old Vine Zinfandel is made from grapes that were grown in Lodi and Amador counties, in vineyards of longtime growing partners. The wine was aged for only seven months in American oak barrels. Alcohol sits at 14.5% abv and I paid $10 for the bottle.

This wine is dark in color and hearty in all other areas. The nose is dark and complex, full of blackberry, blueberry, raspberry and cherry aromas. A full complement of oak spice is on hand, too - clove, cedar, cigar, allspice, nutmeg and anise all battle for attention. On the palate, big fruit flavors hit first with an earthy undercurrent that follows. Tannins are firm, but not bothersome. Acidity is fresh and zippy. 

I paired the Zin with an ancient hummus that I made from chickpeas and roasted walnuts, and it was fantastic. If I do say so myself. I also used it in a pasta sauce I made, which my wife praised to the heavens. Was it the wine, or the oregano? 

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Blood Of The Vines - Dunaway Went Thataway

Pairing‌ ‌wine‌ ‌with‌ ‌movies!‌  ‌See‌ ‌the‌ ‌trailers‌ ‌and‌ ‌hear‌ ‌the‌ ‌fascinating‌ ‌commentary‌ ‌for‌ ‌these‌ ‌movies‌ ‌and‌ ‌many‌ ‌more‌ ‌at‌ ‌Trailers‌ ‌From‌ ‌Hell.‌ This week we have wine pairings for a trio of Faye Dunaway films. 

It is tempting to just skip the wine and make a pitcher of Faye Dunaway cocktails instead. However, with six ingredients and muddling involved, it is far too complicated for me to make. Half of those ingredients are vodka, mango juice and jalapeño peppers, none of which are cocktail faves for me, so I'll be in the wine aisle.

In the 1970 drama, Puzzle of a Downfall Child, Dunaway plays a former fashion model who whiles away the hours of the day at a beach house. Nice work if you can get it. She looks back on her life of debauchery, a composite of sex, drugs, deceit, and probably a glass of wine here and there, and cannot find any good memories to pluck from it. Well, that is certainly puzzling. All that debauchery, and no good memories? Very puzzling.

It is puzzling enough to send me into the word association vault, where only the finest wine pairings for movies reside. In there, I spied a dusty bottle from Napa Valley, from a producer named Newton. The Puzzle is a red blend which brings together the big 5 Bordeaux grape varieties with no regrets at all. If you are looking for debauchery, The Puzzle is a good place to start. I saw the 2018 vintage going for $150. 

Would Faye herself like a glass or two of it? Maybe. Her character in Puzzle most certainly would. But she wouldn't enjoy it. Her character in Barfly would just take a bottle of vodka. 

The 1974 neo-noir classic, Chinatown, features Dunaway in what was instantly hailed as one of the best films ever made. It was recently described in The Offer, offhandedly, as possessing the winning combination of incest and water rights. Well, it goes to show, you never know what people will pay to see. 

Chinatown is a puzzle of its own. Why is that water gushing from the reservoir every night? Who killed that guy? Why did this guy cut my nose? Is she really her? My sister? My daughter? So many questions, too many answers. Riddle me this: what wine will we pour for Chinatown?

Let's try some pink wine from France. Hampton Water rosé comes from the Languedoc, from winemaker Gerard Bertrand. It is actually the brainchild of Jesse and Jon Bon Jovi, and Hampton Water contributes to the It Gets Better program, which supports LGBTQ+ youth around the world. 

Mommie Dearest had 1981 Dunaway cast as Joan Crawford. It seems I remember a trailer for the movie, probably a spoof, selling Mommie as a horror film. The "no wire hangers" line played into that concept significantly. Mommie Dearest did sell Crawford as an abusive drunk, which pushes a wine pairing for the movie out of the realm of comedy and into tragedy. 

Sometime between then and now, the idea of "mommy wine" was born. It isn't difficult to find online offers of clothing, wine glasses, decor items, mouse pads, and shower curtains emblazoned with the notion that "Mommy needs a glass of wine." Conceivably, there are a few items with Crawford's face emblazoned on them as well. We are in toxic territory with the mommy wine culture. There are many out there who feel that if Mommy is so stressed out from being a parent, a glass of wine may not be the proper method of dealing with that stress. 

Anyway, Mommy's Time Out Pinot Grigio is our pairing here, for better or worse. It's a bottom shelf bottling which sells for less than ten bucks, so mommy can afford all the stress relief she needs. It also comes in other "flavors."

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Another Bargain Chardonnay

The Whole Foods Market site shows a variety of wines by Three Wishes - Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and a blend of Colombard and Pinot Grigio. That last one sounds interesting enough that I wish I had found it when I bought the Chardonnay. Oops, there goes one of my three wishes.

The product page shows, in addition to wine, a grain-free, gluten-free breakfast cereal under the Three Wishes name. I was not so interested in the cereal, but the wine really was pretty good, especially for one that cost only $4. There is not a lot of information out there on Three Wishes. I can tell you that the back label shows it as an "American Chardonnay," which is not something I've ever run across on a wine that is apparently from California. The non-vintage wine runs alcohol at 12.5% abv.

This wine has a golden hue in the glass. It smells quite nice, with Meyer lemon, cantaloupe, minerals and a heavy wash of apricot nectar. The palate is crisp and not as oaky as I would have expected. The effect of the barrel aging is noticeable, but not overdone. The other Three Wishes varieties are in the same price range. If you have to buy lots of bottles for a party or meeting, Three Wishes would seem like a good choice.

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Chardonnay From Spain At A Bargain Price

I thought I would do a little bargain hunting and spied a Spanish Chardonnay on the bottom shelf. This was a day after Spain defeated England to win the Women's World Cup, so I thought I would celebrate for them with a wine from España.

Spain does not make me think of Chardonnay. Verdejo, yes. Albariño, absolutely. Hondarrabi Zuri, sure, why not? Chardonnay is more in line with France, or California, for me. But I am always up for something new, even if it is something old from an unexpected place.

The Don Simon Chardonnay is produced by the Carrion company, run by Jose Garcia Carrion. The Chardonnay grapes for this wine were grown in Spain's La Mancha region, reported to be the largest vineyard in the world. It is possible that Google lost the meaning of that phrase in translation, I suppose. Anyway, Carrion is reputedly the largest wine producer in Europe. 

The wine - apparently non-vintage - was fermented in stainless steel and separated from the lees. Aging took place in oak, but for only three months. Alcohol rests low for this Chardonnay, at 11.5% abv, and the price was only $5 at my local Whole Foods Market. I'll bet you didn’t think you could get a $5 wine at Whole Foods. I know I didn't. 

This wine has a pretty golden straw color to it. Peach aromas arrive first on the nose, with mineral, apricot and cantaloupe notes following. Sweet oak spice adds another dimension, but it stays in the background. The palate brings some very nice stone fruit, apricot and citrus to the sip. Acidity is fairly fresh and the wine tastes crisp and clean. The finish is long and pleasant. You can pair this wine easily with seafood or salad. It won't make you forget about the Santa Maria Valley or white Burgundy, but for $5, it is a nice bargain. 

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Blood Of The Vines - Pre Code Follies

Pairing‌ ‌wine‌ ‌with‌ ‌movies!‌  ‌See‌ ‌the‌ ‌trailers‌ ‌and‌ ‌hear‌ ‌the‌ ‌fascinating‌ ‌commentary‌ ‌for‌ ‌these‌ ‌movies‌ ‌and‌ ‌many‌ ‌more‌ ‌at‌ ‌Trailers‌ ‌From‌ ‌Hell.‌ This week we go back… way back… back into time… to an era when there was no Hays Code. 

It seems so unfair that a short time after movies learned to talk, someone came along to try and make them shut up. The Hays Code may not have taken the words from the actors' mouths, but it often gave them different words to speak. What Prohibition was to booze, the Hays Code wanted to be to movies.

In the 1931 classic, Safe in Hell, a woman accused of murder runs away to what is described in some places as a "South Pacific paradise." The place where she actually sought refuge was Tortuga, an island in the Caribbean, specifically Haiti. 

Haitian wine is tough to find, because the grape industry in the Caribbean has found it difficult to get a toehold. The climate just doesn't cooperate. Anyway, why make wine with all that sugar cane growing? Rum is the export from Haiti and their neighboring nations. But occasionally a winemaker gets away. Bertony Faustin makes wine in Oregon. He was born to Haitian immigrants and says he does not drink alcohol. He thinks of himself as a farmer first, raising Pinot Noir grapes in one of the Pinot Noir-iest places in America. He is also on the books as the first black winemaker in Oregon. His Pinot goes for $50 and up. Pair his wine with Safe in Hell and let the Hays Code be damned. 

1933's International House features a who's who of radio and vaudeville performers of the day, complete with some blue humor, since there was no Hays Code to worry the producers. There are a few songs along the way, like Cab Calloway and his Harlem Maniacs doing Reefer Man. Try that with Mr. Hays looking over your shoulder. 

At the top of the bill is W. C. Fields, a guy who I paraphrase every time I cook with wine. You know, "...sometimes I even add it to the food." My wife tells me that joke never gets tiresome. Never. Not even a little bit. Burns and Allen do their thing, Bela Lugosi is on hand and Rose Marie livens up the proceedings in her special way.

A movie this wild deserves a wild wine pairing. Pop the cork on a nice bottle of Champagne. The good stuff gets pretty rich pretty fast, but a bottle of Nicolas Feuillatte Reserve Exclusive Brut Blue Label can be yours for the wild price of two $20 bills. Or fire up a reefer and enjoy. 

Wild Boys of the Road, another one 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, it does get better. 

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 right here in lil' ol' 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 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 go 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 of the wines carry the thread of Depression Era America through them. Lift a glass to the teenaged hobos of Wild Boys of the Road. 

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Orange Wine Of The Earth

The Bonny Doon Vineyard Le Cigare Orange 2022 is labeled, unofficially, as "skin contact wine of the earth." The orange color comes from fermenting white wine grapes on their skins, which has become a fairly trendy trick for winemakers in recent years. 

The "le cigare" in the name refers to the French term for UFO. The back label tells an abbreviated version of the story about legislation put on the books in the Rhône Valley back in the 1950s. The law banned UFOs from landing in the vineyards. It appears to have worked.

This orange wine was made from 80% Grenache Blanc grapes, 10% Grenache and 10% Orange Muscat. The grapes were grown in a handful of Central Coast vineyards: Beeswax, Windfall, Loma del Rio and Carrasco. The label says that Le Cigare Orange is vegan friendly and gluten free, carries alcohol at 10.5% abv and cost about $15 at my local Whole Foods Market a couple of weeks ago. 

This wine has a beautiful copper color in the glass. The nose is laden with minerals and stone fruit, as one would expect from a white wine. The mouthfeel leans a bit toward red wine territory, or at least a crisp rosé. Red fruit appears in the flavor profile, along with apricots and peaches. There is quite a bit of acidity and freshness to the sip. The finish is long and clean. 

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Summer With Sauvignon Blanc From New Zealand

Summertime is the heyday for white wines and rosés. Maybe the most appreciated white during the heat of summer is a cool and refreshing Sauvignon Blanc. Nobody does SB like NZ, and the Appellation Marlborough Wine is where some of the most satisfying New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs are made. Need a map of the appellation? Here it is right here. 

Babich is a family owned winery which was established in 1916. If a company is successful for more than a century selling wine, they must be doing it right. The 2022 Babich Family Estate's Sauvignon Blanc is a single vineyard wine, Headwaters Vineyard, in Wairau Valley. The organic grape varieties used were Sauvignon Blanc (86%), Pinot Gris (9%), Grüner Veltliner (5%) and a splash of Albariño. That makes for an interesting blend.

The wine saw stainless steel tank fermentation with a quarter of the wine receiving malolactic fermentation, to smooth out the flavor and add some creaminess. Alcohol hits just below 13%, at 12.9% abv, and the retail price is around $14, but I see it for a couple dollars less online. The sustainably produced wine is bottled under a screw cap.  

This wine appears in the glass with a light green-gold hue. The nose gives a great citrus aroma, with lemons, limes and oranges in play. There is also a strong mineral note and a fairly intense herbal smell, but with a bit of a sweet edge to it. The palate has acidity that is fresh and invigorating. The flavors follow the tropical/citrus slant established on the nose. The mouthfeel is on the creamy side, despite the ripping acidity and the finish is lengthy. This wine will be a great match for a plate of oysters. 

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Blood Of The Vines - Waterlogged

Pairing‌ ‌wine‌ ‌with‌ ‌movies!‌  ‌See‌ ‌the‌ ‌trailers‌ ‌and‌ ‌hear‌ ‌the‌ ‌fascinating‌ ‌commentary‌ ‌for‌ ‌these‌ ‌movies‌ ‌and‌ ‌many‌ ‌more‌ ‌at‌ ‌Trailers‌ ‌From‌ ‌Hell.‌ This week we don our snorkeling gear for a dip in the cool waters of celluloid. Wine pairings for those flicks await you onshore.

The 2020 thriller, Underwater, has no exclamation point after the word, which helps, along with many other things, to differentiate it from the 1955 movie that does have the exclamation point. Usually it is overuse of commas that gets me into trouble with the punctuation police. 

Wine is not, despite what some people think, alcohol with water in it. That's called scotch and water, or gin and tonic, or a wet martini. These days, some folks are putting their wines under the water for aging purposes. They feel the gentle movement of the waves will offer some assistance in getting the wine to its senior years.

One wine seller recently had to pour out two thousand bottles of their wine which had been gently swaying in the waters off Santa Barbara. They put those cases below the waves without the permission of the California Coastal Commission, which branded the wine "unfit for human consumption." That also describes some wines I've had in the past, and some movies I've seen.

In Underwater, an earthquake hammers an undersea drilling facility and the crew has to escape. Making it difficult are a lack of escape pods, a long underwater walk to another facility, and monsters. I guess the monsters are probably their biggest hurdle.

Let's pair a wine with Underwater which has actually spent some time underwater, but with the proper permits. Croatia's Edivo Vina Winery is above ground along the Adriatic Sea, but their Navis Mysterium wine is aged for a couple of years below the waves. A bottle of this seafaring vino can run up to $400, but it comes in a nice wooden box. Use that for burying your wine budget.

She Gods of Shark Reef livened up 1958 for B-movie fans. Director Roger Corman says he doesn't remember any She Gods in the picture, but there are some beautiful hula dancers in it, who are given considerable time in a movie that is only seconds more than an hour long.

There are sharks in the movie, and that makes a wine pairing easy. Look for a golfer whose nickname is "The Great White Shark." Greg Norman Estates has good stuff from California, Australia and New Zealand. None are named "Shark" but each has the telltale fin on the label. 

What story there is follows a shipwrecked pair of brothers in a tropical paradise populated with beautiful hula dancers. One of the brothers is a good guy and the other is a bad guy. That's how it goes in adventure films. By the way, you won't see many other movies in which the shark is a good guy, at least comparatively. 

1954's Creature from the Black Lagoon has probably influenced more pop culture than any other man-in-a-suit movie. The Gill-man turns up in video games on the casino floor, a Dave Edmunds song was written about him, and he even stars in homoerotic literature, not to mention the raft of movie monsters that were inspired by or patterned after him.

When it comes to instinct-driven characters in the movies, the creature has primal motivation. Does Gill-man want to kill? No. Does he want to destroy? Not really. Does he want to find a way back home? Hell no. He wants the girl. I've already got a girl, so I'll be happy with a bottle of wine.

Black Lagoon Carignan has no doubt been waiting for just this pairing. The wine comes from the south of France - Languedoc-Roussillon, to be precise - and has a depiction of the creature on the label. At least, I’m guessing it is the Gill-man. It looks like it could be a pair of frog's legs, which is not a bad idea for what to nibble on while watching and imbibing. 

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New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc From Marlborough

Summertime is the heyday for white wines and rosés. Maybe the most appreciated white during the heat of summer is a cool and refreshing Sauvignon Blanc. Nobody does SB like NZ, and the Appellation Marlborough Wine is where some of the most satisfying New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs are made. Need a map of the appellation? Here it is right here. 

Greywacke - pronounced grey-wacky - refers to the bedrock under which a good part of New Zealand lies, the stones of which are found in Marlborough's rivers and soils. Winemaker Kevin Judd specializes in Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir, using grapes grown in several vineyards of particularly high quality in Marlborough's Southern Valleys and the central Wairau Plains (specifically Woodbourne, Renwick and Rapaura). 

Most of the 2022 Greywacke Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc was fermented in stainless steel tanks, while a portion was allowed to ferment spontaneously in old oak barrels. The wine spent a good deal of time on the lees as it waited for bottling. Alcohol sits at 13.5% abv and it can be found for around $20.

This wine is a very pale yellow in the glass. The nose offers aromas of Meyer lemon, lime, guava, tropical fruit, a bit of grassiness and a touch of nectarine. That massive cornucopia of fruit tends to mask the mineral aspect, but it is there. The palate is a bright and zesty fruit stand as well. Big, ripe flavors burst forth on the sip, while a gentle acidity gives freshness in an almost creamy setting. The time spent sitting on the lees did wonders for the wine. 

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New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc For Summer

Summertime is the heyday for white wines and rosés. Maybe the most appreciated white during the heat of summer is a cool and refreshing Sauvignon Blanc. Nobody does SB like NZ, and the Appellation Marlborough Wine is where some of the most satisfying New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs are made. Need a map of the appellation? Here it is right here. 

Spy Valley's 2022 Satellite Sauvignon Blanc is all Marlborough fruit, overseen by viticulturist Adam McCone for winemaker Wendy Stuckey. The Sauvignon Blanc grapes were plucked mainly from the Johnson Estate vineyard. Alcohol is easy to take, at 12.5% abv, as is the $17 retail price. Spy Valley works closely with the New Zealand conservation group Forest & Bird. 

This pale wine shows mineral and herbal qualities on the nose. The wine smells much grassier than the previous two New Zealand SBs I sampled (Babich and Greywacke). The palate shows a boatload of citrus minerality, too, with a racy acidity. Crustaceans and mollosks are welcome here. 

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Blood Of The Vines - The Friedkin Connection

Pairing‌ ‌wine‌ ‌with‌ ‌movies!‌  ‌See‌ ‌the‌ ‌trailers‌ ‌and‌ ‌hear‌ ‌the‌ ‌fascinating‌ ‌commentary‌ ‌for‌ ‌these‌ ‌movies‌ ‌and‌ ‌many‌ ‌more‌ ‌at‌ ‌Trailers‌ ‌From‌ ‌Hell.‌ This week, we say goodbye to another great. Director William Friedkin has left us these films by which to remember him while we drink.

When we think of Friedkin, we naturally think of The Exorcist, from 1973. That's a film that prompted a lot of people to drink, if only to try and forget the pea-soup vomiting scenes. Of course, there were plenty of things we tried to drink away that year. Vietnam. Nixon. Watergate. Match Game '73. Just to name a few. Hey, maybe the devil made that 18-minute gap in the White House tapes!

Back to pea-soup vomiting. That makes us think of excessive consumption of green beverages. Or is it just me? Chartreuse, Midori and crème de menthe are perfectly good spirits to effect a green remembrance of the night's boozing, but absinthe is my favorite green meanie. If you are skipping the viewing of The Exorcist, these verdant cocktails might come in handy on St. Patrick's Day. 

The film offered several other moments of fright, like Linda Blair's head spinning, bed levitation, the crucifix scene, and one of the more gut-wrenching medical procedures outside of the dental sequence in Marathon Man.

Friedkin was not the first choice to direct The Exorcist. Or the second. Or the third. In fact, a good chunk of the roll call at the DGA had first crack at it. Friedkin got it, however, with a little help from the book's author, William Peter Blatty. He thought Friedkin's documentary background would bring an element of realism to the film. He was right.

Two sequels to The Exorcist were made, along with a short-lived television series, and now three new sequels are planned for the near future. I don't know about you, but sequels usually drive me to drink. Get those green cocktails ready to pour.

Now, when we think of France we think of wine, right? But The French Connection is an American movie, so let's not rush to Bordeaux. The French Connection Winery, in the Texas Hill Country, produces wines using Texas-grown Rhône grapes. Syrah, Roussanne and Viognier all grace their wine list, of course. But this winery also slaps a cowboy hat on Counoise. That's ballsy. Their slug line, "Santé, y'all," is a registered trademark, so be careful how you use it in your everyday life.

New Mexico's Gruet Winery makes a highly respected sparkling wine using in-state grapes and fruit from Washington and California. It was started by a Bordeaux winemaker who apparently thought just making wine wasn't hard enough. "Let's do it in New Mexico!" Gruet is another French connection in American wine.

Friedkin directed The French Connection all the way to an Oscar for Best Directing. That is a bit like a wine lover becoming a Master Sommelier. It looks very good on a résumé, but once it is on your résumé, you probably don't need a résumé anymore. They'll be calling you.

In the 1971 classic, Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider play a couple of cops who are just trying to keep the streets of the Big Apple clean. Their dream of a drug-free NYC is way out of reach, and they know it. But Popeye Doyle will wave goodbye to that little Frenchman if it's the last thing he does. 

The pursuit of that French drug smuggler is the most tenacious thing ever put on celluloid. Friedkin has said that the car chase scene was a last-minute addition to the script and was a real seat-of-the-pants production where his documentary skills paid off. The car reportedly covered 26 blocks at high speed with nary a city permit in hand. He later said it was so dangerous that he would never stage that sort of stunt again. 

Friedkin and Scheider would work together again in 1977 on Sorcerer. Do you want to talk about a bad beat? Friedkin's Sorcerer came out in the same year as Star Wars. Consider your thunder stolen. Some say Sorcerer is a remake of 1953's The Wages of Fear, although that "some" does not include Mr. Friedkin. He should know - he made the movie.

If Sorcerer is a forgotten classic, let me refresh your memory. Four desperate men are assigned to haul some nitroglycerin somewhere in South America. Do they have any special training for this? Of course not - if they did, it's a documentary.  If you are watching and wondering, "Hey, where da Sorcerer at?" have no fear. It's the name of one of the nitro-hauling trucks.

I had the pleasure of seeing Sorcerer in a beautiful 35-millimeter print, with plenty of inexpensive popcorn at the concession stand. Thank you, New Beverly Cinema! Sorcerer shows that desperate, untrained men handling explosives rarely end up in a positive situation, but usually they make a great story.

I simply didn't have the heart to pair a Bulgarian wine called Explosion with Sorcerer. I took a similar hard pass on any wine-related item which featured Mickey Mouse in a sorcerer's hat, and I urge you to do the same. 

Família Geisse makes some of the top sparkling wines in the America from the southern hemisphere - in big, bad Brazil, in fact. If you're feeling reckless, shake up a bottle and let it rip.

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Organic And Naked Cabernet Sauvignon From Argentina

Mack and Schühle are Miami-based importers who find great wine and pass it along at a fair price. They produce wine in Italy and Spain and distribute other wines globally.

They also distribute Art of Earth, a global vintner which makes wine from organic vineyards the world over. Their line includes bottling from Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Argentina. They claim their wines are "true to their origins and winemaking traditions without the use of pesticides or herbicides."

The organic grapes for the 2021 Art of Earth Cabernet Sauvignon were raised and harvested in the central-east valley of Mendoza, Argentina. Winemaker David Gargantini vinified the wine in steel, and there was no oak aging. Alcohol sits at just 13% abv and the retail price is low, too, at only $12. 

The wine's color is medium dark. The nose is bright and fruity, full of ripe red raspberry, cassis and red vines. On the palate that fruit really shines, with no coloring from oak treatment. The tannins are quite firm and the acidity provides a fresh blast. A pairing with steak is okay, but this wine might be better suited to salmon, marinara or an earthy bean dish. 

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