The Body Politic

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 a trio of films to remind us that November 5th is Election Day. Vote, please. And enjoy the wine pairings for each movie.

There are some places in the US where a person cannot get a drink on Election Day. Prohibition-era laws are still on the books in Alaska, Massachusetts and Puerto Rico that prevent people from buying alcohol on the same day we vote for president. That’s the day we may need it most. The ban resulted from politicians who tried to buy votes with free booze. Today, politicians try to buy votes with promises of tax cuts and big, beautiful walls. And tariffs. Tariffs? You expect to get votes with tariffs? Whatever works.

The Best Man is a 1964 political film written by Gore Vidal, who also wrote the stage play. It’s not about the guy standing next to the groom at a wedding. It’s about which man is best suited to be president. It was 1964, so the thought of a woman running for president was only for little girls playing with their D.C. Barbies.

Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson play the candidates here, a principled veteran and a smarmy upstart, both vying for their party’s nomination. We don’t know which party, because way back then, there actually were principled people on both sides.

Kevin McCarthy is in the movie, but not as a candidate. However, his real-life cousin Eugene McCarthy would run for president in 1968. Remember that great McCarthy scene at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers? He screams at the camera, “They’re here already! You’re next!” Could the pod people have been the beginning of the MAGA movement? Seems a little far-fetched, but then so does the MAGA movement.

Lodi’s Michael David Winery has a Bordeaux-style wine called Politically Correct Red Blend. It’s a speak-no-evil concoction that sells for $50. Enjoy it before it gets canceled.

https://shop.michaeldavidwinery.com/product/2021-Politically-Correct-

From 2005, Good Night and Good Luck brought us a reminder of what can happen when unprincipled people gain power. US Senator Joseph McCarthy was a howling lunatic, and I hold papers in my hand which prove it. You know I’m lying because how could I type while holding papers in my hand? He fooled a lot of people with that gambit though.

Joe McCarthy was no relation, by the way, to Senator Eugene McCarthy, although the two did debate each other on TV in the early 1950s. That must have been confusing for the moderators. “The next question is for Senator McCarthy, er, Mr. McCarthy, er, oh hell, the guy on the left.”

George Clooney played CBS News exec Fred Friendly, and David Strathairn’s Edward R. Murrow had me believing that the venerable newsman had been resurrected, complete with a pack of Rod Serling smokes.

Hope Family Wines makes the Troublemaker Red Blend. It takes grapes from the Central Coast, from Paso Robles down into Santa Barbara County. Odd pricing: a bottle is $20, a 3-liter bottle (4 regulars) is $100. I guess the huge bottle is worth something.

https://hopefamilywines.com/shop/

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington was directed by the great Frank Capra and starred Jimmy Stewart as senatorial neophyte Jefferson Smith. He wants to take a piece of land and do good with it, while an elder statesman wants to make money with it. Let the clashing begin.

Nobody could do an impassioned speech like Stewart. His verbal takedown of the bad pol in the chamber is a classic. You haven’t seen such sweating on the Senate floor since Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings.

The movie was criticized at the time by politicians. You had to see that coming. They said the film cast Washington in a bad light. Reading that sentence in today’s political climate is cause for guffaws. What kind of light do you have that will make Washington look good? A magic lamp? If you turn it on and a genie pops out, ask it for some principled Republicans and a nice bottle of Chianti. Sim sala bim.

Master of Wine Tim Atkin writes that when politicizing wine, the big, bold reds are usually favored by conservatives, while more restrained efforts capture the hearts of liberals. I don’t know about that, but from France, where they never accepted the idea of Freedom Fries, comes Château Haut-Bages Liberal. It’s a Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot blend that sells for around $50, depending on the vintage. Liberal, by the way, is the name of a previous owner of the estate a couple hundred years ago. Just goes to show, if you get your name on a French wine, it stays there.

https://gc-lurton-estates.com/en/chateau-haut-bages-liberal.html