I do not expect much from the label on the back of a bottle. Perhaps a story touting the historical importance of a French town. Maybe a geology lesson extolling the volcanic Italian soil. That is not what I saw on the back of the bottle of Franzese wines. I had bought it at Costco for $15 because it was Armenian and – despite living in Los Angeles, which has the largest Armenian population outside of Armenia or Russia – I had never tried wine from that country.
The first paragraph is indeed about how wine originated in Armenia, at the base of Mount Ararat 6,000 years ago. Then I got to the second paragraph:
Franzese is not exaggerating. His dad, Sonny Franzese, was the underboss of the Colombo crime family, the worst-named of the Five Families. Called “the Yuppie Don,” the younger Franzese masterminded a scheme to sell gasoline without paying taxes, thereby delivering nine cents a gallon to the mob. He was selling between a third and a half of all gasoline sold in the New York metropolitan area, from which he skimmed more than $250 million. There’s a minor character named Mikey Franzese in Goodfellas modeled after him.
He was pursued by Rudy Giuliani and eventually went to prison twice. But do not worry - they are getting along fine now.  Whereas some people might have kept this backstory separate from their wine business, Franzese put his fingerprint on the front of the bottle under the assumption that people want to think about prison when sipping a big red with dinner. Franzese became a born-again Christian and now has a YouTube channel with 1.8 million subscribers and lots of powerful people who are willing to be in photos with him, such as Mike Tyson, Barack Obama, and Costco.
As you might have gathered, Franzese is not Armenian. But this Armenian guy cold-called him with the idea of selling wine. This is what that guy looks like:
The slogan he uses on his wine’s Instagram page says, it’s “A sip you can’t refuse.” He even makes wine out of pomegranates, which comes in a bottle that does not, to me, look like something you’d throw through your enemy’s window.
What I think about the Areni wine is not at all important. So much so that I’m going to place my review below this paywall... Continue reading this post for free in the Substack app
|
Monday, November 17, 2025
I Mean No Disrespect, Mr. Franzese
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
-
On Monday, Leon County Circuit Judge Angela Dempsey rejected Bear Warriors United's request for a temporary injunction to halt the s...
-
Police say information from a Reddit tipster who had a strange encounter with another man on a sidewalk outside Brown University provi...
-
Four Ohio cities ranked in the nation's top 100 best cities for single people, according to a WalletHub survey that considered fact...
No comments:
Post a Comment