Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective
Night Train Express
Fortified wine brand From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Remove ads
Night Train Express, typically referred to as just Night Train, was a discount, flavored fortified wine produced by E. & J. Gallo Winery in the United States. The wine typically contained 17.5% abv and was fortified with brandy to boost the abv.[1]
The wine was one of the products, along with Thunderbird, which helped Gallo become the top-selling winery in California and eventually the United States.[2]
Remove ads
Controversy
Night Train, like all discount, fortified wines, was controversial amongst civic leaders in major cities who often claimed it contributed to vagrancy and public drunkenness of homeless people.[3] The wine has been 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 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]
Remove ads
Cultural reception
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]
The wine was discontinued in 2016.[9]
See also
References
Wikiwand - on
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Remove ads