‘Tis the season to be scary. Cue the music: On October thirty-one, when the sun, goes to rest, that’s when drivers have to be extra careful not to run over the ghosts and goblins in the street. That’s my POV as an adult, anyway.
Call me a spoilsport, but Halloween hasn’t really meant that much to me since I was old enough to go outside without my parents. As a kid, it was all about the candy, that’s about it. Then, as I got older and presumably wiser, Halloween became a time for those parties where the gals dressed as sexy witches. I only went to those parties for the costumes.
Now, as an old guy, Halloween means seeing all those evergreen blog posts about which wines to pair with your kids’ Halloween candy. Do you really need that help? I mean, it’s Prosecco with candy corn, right? Syrah with the chocolate stuff. The sexy witch costumes are still a bonus.
Army of Darkness: Evil Dead 3 is from 1992, a scary movie with some laughs sprinkled on top. One of the laughs is that Ash Williams, the hero from the Evil Dead series, is transported back to the Middle Ages. I laugh every time I wonder where in the Middle Ages he proposed to get more shotgun shells or charge up his chain saw. But maybe that’s just me.
There is also a giggle in the trouble he has with the phrase, “Klaatu barada nikto.” That line, from The Day the Earth Stood Still, is supposed to work wonders for him. If only he could spit it out correctly.
Any Evil Dead movie can be augmented nicely with 7 Deadly Zins. Those Lodi Zinfandel grapes aren’t really deadly. That’s the old jug wine from the 1970s you’re thinking about.
The Mummy has been subjected to more sequels, spinoffs and remakes than Batman. In 1959, Christopher Lee played the title role for Hammer Films. His portrayal of the Mummy gets high marks from TFH Guru Brian Trenchard-Smith. Since Lee’s makeup didn’t allow for any speech or facial movement, he had to express his range of emotions only with his eyes. Brian claims the cursing Lee did while acting in the uncomfortable mummy suit would have made a sociopathic sailor plug his ears.
None of that swearing made it into the movie, thanks to looping. But I wonder if anyone on the set was three decades early in delivering the admonition, “Please don’t hurt him, Hammer!”
Door Peninsula Winery is on that bit of Wisconsin which sticks up into Lake Michigan. It has a Mummy Moscato, replete with mummy bandage label art. They claim the wine will have you “walkin’ like an Egyptian” before the mummy has a chance to get his hand around your neck. Is it just me or is there a note of tana leaves on the palate?
Son of Frankenstein came along in 1938, a good vintage for horror at Universal Studios. Boris Karloff turns in another great visual performance as the monster, while Bela Lugosi plays grave-robbing lab assistant Ygor. The original Dr. Frankenstein’s son is around this time. He still feels a chill from the villagers after the monster’s mayhem years before. The torches and pitchforks are still kept within easy reach, just in case.
Speaking of a case, let’s try Hans Wirsching’s Iphöfer Kronsberg Silvaner Trocken. It comes in the Mateus-shaped bottle known as a bocksbeutel, the traditional bottling of the Franken region. It’s the bottle in which Mateus Rosé is packaged. The Silvaner grapes come from a vineyard near the old Frankenstein castle. They say it pairs well with torch-toasted marshmallows.
http://www.wirsching.de/en
Randy Fuller
NowAnd Zin Wine – www.nowandzin.com
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