...your forefathers are not gone, or forgotten.
It requires registration (you can use Bugmenot) but the Sacramento Bee has a good article today about forgotten wines of yesteryear that are still hanging around. Thanks to Beth for tipping me off, since I am not always up on my Sac Bee reading.
I actually spent a good bit of time Googling Boone's Farm a while back, wondering what happened to it, since I drank my share in college (ugh, I know). I couldn't find much info, but then the other day when I was in our corner liquor store picking up Diet Coke, I saw some, and it looks like Boone's is now in the mixer business (there was only one bottle of wine there, but a whole array of frighteningly-colored mixers).
I think a lot of these were used by people as stepping stones to better stuff. I drank my fair share of this type of thing back in the day, I know that. I wonder if it was/is popular since a lot of it is sweet and we know Americans love sweet things?
It's also funny/sad that Lambrusco and Soave produce some good wines, but they are overshadowed by these cheap wines and many people still have a bad taste in their mouths because of the associations with said wines. Same with the basket-Chianti... you can find really good Chianti out there, and I like the stuff, but man, who doesn't associate it with those basket-bottles that were such wonderful candleholders in the 1970s? I wasn't even old enough to drink in the 1970s but I LOVED those baskets, strange kid that I was.
Posted by: Kieca | 13 July 2005 at 02:00 PM
What cracks me up about that list is that I had never heard of most of them, so that a couple of months ago Jeremy and I tried Lancer's thinking it was some crazy import. Which I guess it is , since only a crazy person would import that crap.
I drank a whole lot of that Carlo Rossi stuff when I was trying to teach myself not to hate wine. Amazingly, it worked.
Posted by: Beth | 13 July 2005 at 01:20 PM