Night Train Express

Night Train Express, typically referred to as just Night Train, is a discount, flavored fortified wine produced by E. & J. Gallo Winery in the United States. The wine typically contains 17.5% abv. It is typically fortified with brandy to boost the abv.^[1]

Night Train Express

Type	Flavored fortified wine
Manufacturer	E. & J. Gallo Winery
Distributor	E. & J. Gallo Winery
Origin	United States
Alcohol by volume	17.5
Proof (US)	35
Color	Red

The wine is one of the products, along with Thunderbird, which helped Gallo become the top-selling winery in California and eventually the United States.^[2]

Night Train, like all discount, fortified wines, is controversial amongst civic leaders in major cities who often claim it contributes to vagrancy and public drunkenness of homeless people.^[3] The wine is described as a "cheap way to get drunk fast"^[4] and "as usually hidden by brown bags on Tenderloin street corners."^[5] Cities like San Francisco and Seattle have banned the sale of Night Train in downtown and skid row areas.^[6] In 1989, the Gallo winery, as the result of a federal court case, agreed to stop directly marketing Night Train in "skid row" neighborhoods.^[1]

The wine inspired the song Nightrain on the album Appetite for Destruction by Guns N' Roses.^[7] It was repeatedly referenced in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers, most notably in a scene in which Joliet Jake finishes a bottle and later proclaims "That Night Train is a mean wine".^[8]