{"id":3147,"date":"2015-07-13T23:12:27","date_gmt":"2015-07-14T05:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/?p=3147"},"modified":"2015-07-13T23:12:27","modified_gmt":"2015-07-14T05:12:27","slug":"the-king-of-the-jug-wines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/the-king-of-the-jug-wines\/","title":{"rendered":"The King of the Jug Wines"},"content":{"rendered":"

The King of the Jug Wines is Charlie “Carlo” Rossi<\/a>, who, though he died in 1994, still reigns over the category today. He peddled a pretty good, mostly honest wine for E & J Gallo Winery until his death at age 90. I say “mostly” honest, because he had less to do with making the wine that bears his name than either he or the Gallo company let on.<\/p>\n

Charlie started out as a grape shipper during Prohibition, and had the foresight to marry into the Gallo family when Ernest and Julio’s wine empire began to rise. He went to work for Gallo as a salesman. In 1962, according to the unauthorized history of Gallo, Blood & Wine<\/i>, by Ellen Hawkes<\/a>, Gallo introduced a cheap wine called “Mountain Red” that became popular because it sold in a big jug with a ring handle for carrying. In the late-60s, the counterculture embraced Mountain Red: a Berkeley, California hippie commune, for example, called themselves “Red Mountain Tribe”<\/a> after their favorite Gallo product. But Ernest Gallo, not an Age of Aquarius sort, didn’t appreciate the free publicity. He decided that Mountain Red needed a re-branding.<\/p>\n

Re-brand as what, though? Shirttail relative Charlie was still on the payroll, now working in the marketing department. He had a fortunate last name in common with the Italian winemakers Martini & Rossi, famed for their sparkling wine and vermouth (although Charlie was no relation). And, as it turned out, the congenial Charlie proved to be good in front of a camera, better even than the actors<\/a> that Gallo auditioned for the new, yet-unnamed brand. Why not? Charlie started going by the Italian “Carlo,” Mountain Red was retired, and in 1975, 40 years ago this year, “Carlo Rossi Vineyards” was born.<\/p>\n

Charlie\/Carlo’s main contribution to the brand was as a pitchman, and he was a goofily endearing one. He appeared in all the early TV ads<\/a>, shirt unbuttoned, chuckling, the antithesis of wine snobbery and pretentiousness. “I like talking about my wine,” he laughed, in what would beome a famous tagline, “but I’d rather drink it!” The good, honest wine (“100% grape wine,” the label assures us) became a good, solid seller, and Carlo’s wine jugs and boxes are still making money for E & J Gallo to this day.<\/p>\n

As for how good they really are… the jugs are at least good enough for everyday drinking. I can’t tell much difference between them and Livingston Cellars or the others on the jug shelf. But if the occasion calls for a full 5 liters rather than a mere jug, Carlo’s “Founder’s Blend” boxes are a little more interesting than the jugs, and well worth the modest $20 price. Just don’t be fooled that what you’re drinking comes from an independent vintner, or that it has anything to do with Martini & Rossi.<\/p>\n

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The King of the Jug Wines is Charlie “Carlo” Rossi, who, though he died in 1994, still reigns over the category today. He peddled a pretty good, mostly honest wine for E & J Gallo Winery until his death at age 90. I say “mostly” honest, because he had less to do with making the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":3148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[200,324,328,890,893,891,892,895,894,78],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3147"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}