70s Scuzz
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 take a look at a few movies which detail some of the more disreputable aspects of the Me Decade. We will try to class up the joint a bit with wine pairings for each film.
Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston 40-Brick Lost-Bag Blues is a 1972 film based on the novel from two years earlier. I think I read the book, but I’m not sure that I ever saw the movie back then – but, there is an awful lot from that era that I don’t remember.
The film does feature John Lithgow’s first role, as a drug dealer’s second banana. It’s a pretty cool read, if I remember correctly. It’s a sort of hip thriller aimed at those daring souls who stuffed a dime bag in their sock after scoring some weed. Those were the days. It’s just not the same, buying pot in a boutique shop.
Now, for a fake wine pairing. First off, Wakey Wines is owned by a convicted drug dealer. He was even bounced from Tik Tok for posting things that were not true – sort of like how Trump got kicked off Twitter. And just as Trump was reinstated on that platform, Tik Tok gave the Wakey guy his megaphone back. His social media shows him dealing nothing but scuzz here in the 21st century.
Coca wine was a blend of wine and cocaine, but it fell on hard times when cocaine was banned in the US in 1914. When alcohol was banned six years later, coca wine found itself s.o.l.
I have had fun exploring the scuzzy wine pairing possibilities for Dealing, but it’s time to actually deliver the goods, with a real wine pairing for the film. If you do enough dealing, you’re bound to get busted. Busted Grapes Winery is in upstate New York – about as upstate as it gets. The winery is in a placid community called Black River, just outside of Watertown, away from Lake Ontario. They make wines from those cold-hardy grapes – Marquette, Catawba, Niagara, Frontenac. No prices are given, but they can’t cost that much, can they? And, they ship.
http://www.bustedgrapeswine.com/
Fuzz was a 1972 action comedy. As a 1972 action comedy, could it have starred anyone else but Burt Reynolds and Raquel Welch? A better looking pair of detectives you’d be hard pressed to find. And Reynolds was fresh off his centerfold appearance in Cosmo. But wait, there’s more! For the same low price, you also get Jack Weston, Tom Skerrit and Yul Brenner – crazy man, crazy. If you call before midnight tonight, we’ll throw in the fabulous Peter Bonerz, whose work on the Bob Newhart Show made him a dentist forever. The story, eh, well, did we mention it stars Burt Reynolds and Raquel Welch?
I didn’t expect this pairing to be so easy. Fuzz, the Gamay wine, is made by Brendan Tracey. He also puts his name on wines called Capitalism Rouge, Mellow Yellow and Rue de la Soif – Thirsty Street. He is New Jersey born, raised in California and lives in the land he loves, France. He sells Fuzz for around $35.
http://sensus.wine/tablet/brendan-tracey.html
Switchblade Sisters came from 1975, and shares a slice of life from an all-girl high school gang. Now, I went to high school a long time ago, but our “bad girls” were more inclined to give you a hickey than a stab wound. That I do remember.
These Switchblade Sisters could stand toe-to-toe with the male gangs and go tit for tat with the violence. Shootings, murders, assaults, knifings – and that’s all before fourth period.
It could have been called The Jezebels, but the producers reportedly didn’t think viewers would know what that meant. The film was destined to fall into obscurity, but it got a new lease on life as a cult classic when Quentin Tarantino cited it as a personal fave and re-released it. There’s a guy who knows a Jezebel when he sees one.
Oregon’s Willful Wine Company is apparently among those who are not equipped with a working definition for Jezebel. That is the name they gave to their Pinot Noir, which they call easy-going, well-balanced and fruit-forward. Well, at $20, at least it’s cheap.
https://www.willfulwine.com/product/2021-Jezebel-Pinot-noir
Randy Fuller