ONLY MEN ALLOWED, AND LOTS OF FOOD. A CLUB CAPTURES SPIRIT OF WINE TIME. THE CLUBHOUSE BASEMENT IS FILLED WITH 30- AND 50-GALLON WINE BARRELS FOR ITS EIGHT MEMBERS.

Newspaper October 11, 1995 | Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA)
Author: Ralph Cipriano, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER | Page: A01 | Section: LOCAL

The boys at Frankie Blues’ clubhouse were operating at peak efficiency. Out on the back porch, where the bees were buzzing, Big Al and Tony the Cop were dumping 36-pound boxes of cabernet sauvignon grapes into an automatic crusher and destemmer.

The machine pumped a mound of bare stems out the back and a stream of mashed grapes out the front. The grapes surged through a thick hose that ran through a cellar window.

Downstairs, at the other end of the hose, Frankie Blues was up to his elbows in a 60-gallon vat of cold, foamy, pink and purple grapes. And he was reveling in the glory of the first week of October.

“It’s spectacular,” Frankie Blues said. “You wait for it each year. It’s like Christmas coming. It’s wine time.”

Last week in South Philly, hundreds of home wine makers got together to drink up the old and crush the new. At Frankie Blues’ clubhouse, some old pros were doing it in style.

Labor-saving devices left plenty of time for the boys to lay out the Parma prosciutto, sharp provolone, and homemade sopressata. It was served with warm Italian bread from the bakery around the corner and the boys’ own homemade eggplant.

“How ’bout a little piece of provolone and a glass of wine?” Big Al said to his pals. “It’s 12:30. I’m getting weak.”

Those were just the appetizers. Before you knew it, Frankie Blues was frying up some homemade sausage and wild mushrooms.

“Making wine is no big deal,” Frankie Blues said as he worked the stove. ”You have to create the atmosphere.”

And the atmosphere at the clubhouse is strictly guys and wine and food. There are no pictures on the wall, no door on the downstairs bathroom. The two refrigerators are stocked with meat and plenty of beer.

Big Al, Tony the Cop and Frankie Blues have made wine at the clubhouse for the past eight years. They don’t want to give out the exact location. Let’s just say if you stood on the steps of St. Monica’s Church at 17th and Ritner, you could probably smell the grapes. Or you could ask the garbage man, the guy with bee stings all over his arms.

The clubhouse is a small, two-story rowhouse owned by one of the guys, T.J., who bought it for a song. The basement is filled with 30- and 50-gallon wine barrels for eight men.

There’s Big Al Benigno, 58, from 12th and Bigler, a truck driver who delivers the Daily News in South Philly. He takes the first week of October off every year to make wine.

Tony the Cop is Tony Dominick, 62, of Drexel Hill, a former Philly cop from 18th and Moore who had to retire after he was shot up in a robbery.

Frankie Blues, 59, is a truck driver from Eighth and Federal who doesn’t want his last name printed. He got his nickname as a kid for “always crying the blues.”

“Buddabeep, buddabing, buddabop,” Frankie Blues said.

“We always hang together,” Big Al said.

Frankie Blues has been Big Al’s best man at two weddings. And they’re both pals with Tony.

The rest of the lineup includes Toshie the gas man, who used to work in South Philly; Big Al’s brother Sal, who claimed that both cars broke down last week and that was why he couldn’t come over and help make wine; T.J., who owns the clubhouse; Joe Malone, from 18th and Ritner; and Pickels, a lawyer from the neighborhood.

Every year around this time, the guys tell their wives: “I’m going over to the clubhouse.” During peak production, they’re down there every day. Sometimes, the wives answer: “Why don’t you stay there? Marry the clubhouse.”

But every year, the wine gets made.

Are women allowed in the clubhouse?

“Naaahhh,” Frankie Blues said.

“Strictly men,” Big Al said.

“You bring your wives, you got problems,” Frankie Blues said. “Who needs that? I come here to hide.”

Tony the Cop sat back in an easy chair and lit up a cigar, which his wife won’t let him smoke at home. He was enjoying a glass of carignane, a red that the boys made last year.

“This is the greatest thing in the world,” he said. “A trillion dollars couldn’t buy this.”

He raised his glass.

“It’s delicious,” he added. “I don’t think South Philly will ever have a finer wine maker than Blues.”

Frankie Blues is the brains of the operation, the head wine maker and chief cook. He’s the guy with “Frankie” tattooed on his left arm, a red bandanna tied around his head, and a filter cigarette tucked behind his right ear. He’s known for his radio-smooth voice and silky wines. He also knows how to do a little plumbing, electrical work and carpentry, too.

Last week, when the boys ran out of grapes, Big Al and Frankie Blues hopped in a Ford Ranger truck with no hubcaps and drove down to Procacci Bros. Sales Corp. at Front and Packer. They put in an order for 33 boxes of carignane and one box of dark alicante grapes, for color.

At Procacci’s, demijohns hung from the ceiling and a table with a checkered cloth was covered with antipasto and several bottles of homemade wine. Every year, customers bring sample bottles from last year’s batch to co-owners Joe, J.M. and Lenny Procacci.

The guys brought Lenny a bottle of wine and a dish of sausage and wild mushrooms.

“You got a microwave?” Big Al asked.

Lenny didn’t have the time. He whipped out a fork and ate it right there, standing up. He grabbed the wine. It wasn’t going on the table.

“I gotta hide this,” he said.

The guys drove off, the back of the Ranger brimming with bulging boxes of fruit. After they stacked them on the back porch, it was time to take a break.

Frankie Blues poured a few glasses of wine.

“Whaddya say,” Big Al said. “It’s time to get something to eat, huh?”