Low-end fortified wine.html



This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2007)

This article may need to be wikified to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please help by adding relevant internal links, or by improving the article's layout. (October 2008)

A low-end fortified wine is any of a class of inexpensive fortified wines.

Popular examples

Some popular beverages in this category are Thunderbird, MD 20/20, Cisco, Night Train, and Wild Irish Rose. Buckfast Tonic Wine¹ and formerly Ripple have similar reputations, though Ripple is no longer produced¹. In Canada, Bright's Pale Dry Select Sherry is considered a potent low-end fortified wine¹. Another such wine that is out of production is Sly Fox¹. These wines typically have an alcohol content of between 15 and 20% ABV. Other characteristics include added sugars, artificial colorings and flavorings.

In contrast to table wine, which may be enjoyed as an accompaniment to a meal, or high-end fortified wine, enjoyed as an aperitif or digestif, low-end fortified wines are generally considered suitable only for intoxication. Note that its classification as "wine" is a very loosely used term, and many people refer to it as "hooch", "street wine", "fortified wine", "bum wine", or "twist-cap wine".

• Two popular brands in this category are produced by the E & J Gallo Winery, and were a large part of the company's sales in its early days. Currently, neither carries the logo or other indication of this source although "Boone's Farm" (produced by E&J) does (5-7% ABV). These are Night Train Express (usually abbreviated to Night Train, and even has a song named for it) and Thunderbird (The American Classic). Night Train typically contains 17.5% alcohol by volume. Thunderbird is sold at between 13% and 18% ABV and first became popular in the 1950s. Its popularity led to the introduction of Thunderbird ESQ. Night Train Express has been a very controversial brand among civic leaders in major cities as it is felt that Night Train, as well as other inexpensive high liquor content drinks, contribute to vagrancy and public drunkenness of homeless people. Thunderbird was once marketed in the United Kingdom as "The California Aperitif.". The 1950s radio jingle that promoted Thunderbird had a song that sang, "What's the word? / Thunderbird / How's it sold? / Good and cold / What's the jive? / Bird's alive / What's the price? / Thirty twice.".
• Ripple was an inexpensive fortified wine also produced by E & J Gallo Winery² that was popular among certain social classes in the United States, particularly in the 1970s. Due to its high alcohol content and low price, it had a reputation as a drink for alcoholics and the destitute. It was popular among young drinkers, both underage and college students. Ripple was mentioned often as being Fred Sanford's alcoholic beverage of choice on the 1970s TV show Sanford and Son (starring Redd Foxx), who once referred to it as "The national wine of Watts".³ It is no longer produced.
• MD 20/20 a.k.a. Mad Dog is an American fortified "wine" produced by Mogen David wineries. MD 20/20 has an alcohol content that varies by flavor from 13% to 18% (with most of the 18% varieties discontinued, although Red Grape is widely available from the 18% category). The "MD" stands for "Mogen David," the name of the company based in Westfield, New York which makes it; the company is named after the Star of David, which in the original Hebrew is Magen David (pronounced mah-GEN dah-VEED) or Yiddish (pronounced MUH-gen DUH-vid), literally meaning "Shield of David;" the product's aficionado dubbed it "Mad Dog" to represent the initials "MD".
• Cisco is the brand name of a highly alcoholic, low-price fortified wine, produced by the Centerra Wine Company (a division of Constellation Brands) with varieties selling at 17.5% and 19.5% alcohol by volume. Cisco has a distinctive syrup-sweet taste and, because of its color and bottle shape, was often mistaken for a wine cooler. The Federal Trade Commission forced the company to put a label on the bottle stating it was not a wine cooler and had the company change its marketing strategy from "Takes You By Surprise".⁴.
• Richards Wild Irish Rose is an alcoholic beverage produced by Centerra Wine Company, which is part of the Constellation Brands organization. It was introduced in 1954 and currently sells about two million cases annually. The brand is available in 13.9% and 18% alcohol by volume.

History

An early reference to the problem of cheap and poorly made wines is in the "Report on Cheap Wines" in the November 5, 1864 issue of The Medical Times and Gazette. The author, in prescribing inexpensive wines for a number of ills, cautions against the "fortified" wines of the day, describing of one sample that he had tried:

When the cork was drawn it was scarcely tinted, and was a very bad one - a thing of no good augury for the wine. There was no smell of port wine. The liquid, when tasted, gave the palate half-a-dozen sensations instead of one. There was a hot taste of spirits, a sweet taste, a fruity taste like damsons, and an unmistakable flavor of Roussillon [an alternative name in France for wine made from the grape Grenache]. It was a strong, unwholesome liquor, purchased very dearly.⁵

It is reported, however, that the popularity of cheap, fortified wines in the United States arose in the 1930s, as a product of Prohibition and the Great Depression:

Prohibition produced the Roaring Twenties and fostered more beer and distilled-spirit drinkers than wine drinkers, because the raw materials were easier to come by. But fortified wine, or medicinal wine tonic—-containing about 20 percent alcohol, which made it more like a distilled spirit than regular wine--was still available and became America's number one wine. Thunderbird and Wild Irish Rose, to name two examples, are fortified wines. American wine was soon more popular for its effect than its taste; in fact, the word wino came into use during the Depression to describe those unfortunate souls who turned to fortified wine to forget their troubles.

—Kevin Zraly, Kevin Zraly's American Wine Guide (2006) p. 38.

Concerns and media attention

More recently, the appeal of cheap fortified wines to the poor and homeless has raised concerns:

Community groups in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland have urged makers of fortified wines such as Wild Irish Rose and E & J Gallo's Thunderbird and Night Train brands to pull their products from the shelves of liquor retailers in skid row areas. In Nashville, Tennessee, one liquor store owner told Nashville Business Journal reporter Julie Hinds that police warned him to stop selling his biggest selling product, Wild Irish Rose, because it encouraged homeless people to linger in the area.

—Janice Jorgensen, Encyclopedia of Consumer Brands: Consumable Products (1993), p. 492.

In 2005, the Seattle City Council asked the Washington State Liquor Control Board to prohibit the sale of certain alcohol products in an impoverished "Alcohol Impact Area". Among the products sought to be banned were over two dozen beers, and six wines: Cisco, Gino's Premium Blend, MD 20/20, Night Train, Thunderbird, and Wild Irish Rose.⁶ The Liquor Control Board approved these restrictions on August 30, 2006, and the ban came into effect on November 1, 2006.⁷

See also

• Hooch
• Jabol
• Malt liquor
• Pruno

References

External links

• Cheap Fun Bum Wines
• BumWine.com
• ghettowine.com