Interesting article by MaryOrlin:
RetastingRetro
on retasting the retro wines of our youth (which, for me, was not all that long ago) like Lancers & Riunite & BlueNun.
Tom
Found over a dozen bottles of Cold Duck we disposed of last year when we cleaned out my mother’s house.
But what about Liebfraumilch? Zeller Schwarze Katz - the Black Cat wine? It eventually became the name of the vineyard and some people even sold it in the cat bottle:
This is great though:
According to the Wine Industry Network, Riunité was —and continues to be — this country’s most popular Italian red wine.
Eat your heart out Gaja
Thanks for the article, Tom!
My aunt still waxes on about the delights of the “Chianti with the straw covered-bottle” and Mateus Rose.
Definitely a trip down memory lane, commercials and all.
thanks for posting.
Wines of my youth.
By the time those wines were in vogue, Michael, I’d already moved from Lancers and Mateus
to NapaVlly Cabernet. Moved on from NapaCab some 20 yrs ago now.
Tom
Growing up in Wisconsin I was considered highly sophisticated ![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
drinking those wines when everyone else was consuming Schlitz, Pabst, Old Style and for really nice occasions, Heileman’s Special Export. ![[snort.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/b/bdc3944606213c4dca6c1169cf0a166c8bc4f8c9.gif "snort.gif"){kind=small}
Good timing, as we had a bottle at a tasting/meal at our place a few weeks ago. The nose definitely had a confected feel, the palate a little dull though livened by moderate level of fizz, and not excessively sweet. Palatable, which was much better than our collective recollections of a particularly grim wine back in the day. The remnants survived well for a number of days in the screwcap bottle. The group viewed the modern clear glass bottle as highly disappointing when compered to the old bottle which was widely used as a cheap candle-holder back in time.
Credit to the group, that they went along with the frivolity of this little joke addition, giving it a fair assessment.
Mondavi Table Red – later known as Woodbridge. That was very reliable back in the '80s.
Someone served a Blue Nun blindly in a group of mine 10 years or so. Many of us have a lot of Germans in our cellar. Well, darn, if the Blue Nun didn’t taste good. We were guessing a Mosel Spatlese. Seriously!
I was going to say – let’s not forget Mateus rose!
Does the name Triple Jack, an apple wine consumed in upstate NY in the 60’s, ring any bells?
F-ing yea! Yum!
We used to pile in the skunk wagon(black and white Ford station wagon) gulp some Triple Jack and head down to Elmira, trollin’ for dates.
I bet someone could market a can of Pink Champale today, it would sell!! Could do a microbrew of pinot and a lighter ale. Dogfish is probably on it already…
I started working in a steakhouse in CA in 1973. The wine list included Lancer’s and Mateus, Blue Nun, Charles Krug Chenin Blanc, Weibel Green Hungarian, Wente Grey Riesling, Monmousseau Vouvray, a Pouilly-Fuisse and Parducci and Concannon Petite Sirah. Maybe there was a Louis Martini Cabernet and a Johannisberg Riesling.
I forgot the Parducci Gamay Beaujolais.
YES it was all rubbish
I’m thinking of Manischewitz Concord Grape Wine at the Passover table. I don’t remember the vintage…
Wasn’t it Boons Farm that had the apple wine in the brown jugs?
Gallo Pink Chablis?
Hey, don’t knock Wente Grey Riesling!
And in those days Concannon Petite Sirah was a seriously good wine. That’s the one to order, for sure, off that list!
I wasn’t knocking it, John. In fact if a had a bottle here I’d happily pour a glass. Those Petite Sirahs, IIRC, had massive tannins, but might be drinking well currently.
I don’t recall the Concannons being that tannic. They were more elegant than most PS. I wonder if they really were actually PS/durif. There was a lot of confusion around PS back in the 70s and 80s.
Does anyone remember Night Train Express? To me, it was right up there with Mad Dog 20/20.
