The blog is mostly off until Monday, when the 2009 $10 Hall of Fame makes goes up. Until then, this, from one of the early proponents of cheap wine, Carlo Rossi. This commercial is from the early 1970s (there are two others on the Rossi web site). A couple of notes: Burgundy, in those days, referred to almost any California red wine and not pinot noir from the Burgundy region of France, and Rossi was a real person – a distant relative of the Gallo family, whose company owned (and still owns) the brand.
It’s funny. Watch the commercial, and you’ll realize how little wine has changed in the U.S. in the past 35 years despite all the scores and wine writing and our supposedly improved and sophisticated palates. “It’s not fancy labels and big prices that make good wine,” says Carlo, and who can argue with that?



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