When I wrote last month about Filippi Winery in Rancho Cucamonga, which may transition to a new owner in the coming years as part of new development, I didn’t go into one of the winery’s claims to fame.
But along came reader/Deadhead William Hill to plug that gap.
From 1946 to 1969, Filippi produced a cheap wine named Pride of Cucamonga, sold with a white screw cap. The locally sold wine somehow came to the attention of the Grateful Dead, who recorded a song titled “Pride of Cucamonga” in 1974.
“Oh oh, the pride of Cucamonga/Oh oh, silver apples in the sun/Oh oh, I had me some lovin’/And I done some time,” goes one chorus of the somewhat elusive song, in which the narrator is hitchhiking from Oregon to Mexico to escape some sort of trouble.
Pride of Cucamonga was an ironic name for a low-end wine, but the song gave the product a splash of pop-culture immortality and may have led the winery in later years to revive the name, this time for a better wine.
A giant reproduction of the Pride of Cucamonga label is part of a mural on the winery building at 12467 Base Line Road on the north-facing wall next to the sidewalk. Put on a tie-dyed shirt and go pose for a selfie. Also, a Dead cover band in the 909 is named Pride of Cucamonga.
I once asked Gino Filippi, then the winery’s vice president, about the wine’s legacy.
“Perhaps Pride of Cucamonga helped put Cucamonga on the map and helped the boys on the long road trips,” Filippi mused in 2005. “Keep on truckin’!”
Hill tells me that although he attended more than 100 Dead shows — which may have left him dead on his feet — he never heard the band play the song, despite requests. At least one Dead fansite says the song was never performed live.
This is where we get into some Dead lore that had never come to my attention. It involves member Phil Lesh, who wrote the music to “Pride of Cucamonga” to go along with poet Robert M. Petersen’s words.
“At shows it was often fun sport to yell out to the band ‘Let Phil sing’ and then in a later-year evolution ‘Make Phil sing.’ It was also on T-shirts and such,” Hill explains. That’s because bass player Lesh sang only a few songs, “Box of Rain” among them and, you guessed it, “Pride of Cucamonga.”
“Within this subgroup of Let-Phil-Sing promoters,” Hill continues, “we would sometimes yell out ‘Pride of Cucamonga!’ to show off our depth of knowledge on the subject, hoping some neophyte would ask us about Cucamonga.”
Hill says he’s long intended to send a bottle of Pride of Cucamonga wine to Lesh at his Marin County restaurant and music venue, Terrapin Crossroads. “If these notes merit a mention in your column,” he says in his email, “perhaps I will, and include your column.”
To your health, Mr. Lesh.
More wine
Meanwhile, reader Betty Imperato recalls going wine-tasting in Cucamonga and Ontario back in the 1970s when there were multiple wineries to visit, such as Brookside in Guasti and Regina in Etiwanda. The Regina property is now home to the Filippi Winery.
“The last stop was always Regina because they let us sample Champagne. They also had Lilliputian horses for pulling a cart with kids on it,” Imperato recalls. “We would then buy a bottle of Champagne, a loaf of garlic bread and grape juice for the kids, and have a picnic.”
She and her friends always went wine-tasting at three wineries — after learning that four was one too many.
Vaccinated at 104
In Fontana, Mayor Aquanetta Warren’s weekly video included a socially distanced outdoor chat with Rosie Smallie, 104, who’d just been vaccinated against coronavirus.
Asked how the shot went, Smallie tells the mayor: “Oh, it was good, baby, I didn’t even feel it.”
Warren asks Smallie what she’ll do when she gets home. “Nothing, darling, just look at TV” is her reply.
“You are a superstar. Did you know that?” the mayor teases her.
Smallie looks surprised but pleased: “No, I didn’t. Oh, thank you, darling.”
After a compliment like that from her city’s top official, I suppose making the newspaper will be anticlimactic.
brIEfly
Pomona has had LGBTQ bars and nightclubs going back to 1969, the year of the Stonewall riots, a history that’s been documented by researcher Delana Martin. Pomona’s welcoming attitude and its location midway between gay-friendly L.A. and Palm Springs help explain why. Martin will share her findings during a Zoom talk from 10:30 a.m. to noon Saturday for the Pomona Pride Center. Register for the free event at https://linktr.ee/pomonapridecenter.
David Allen writes Friday, Sunday and Wednesday, days midway between all the others. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, visit insidesocal.com/davidallen, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook and follow @davidallen909 on Twitter.
