OK, now here’s a celebrity wine I may not be able to resist.
Wines that Rock, a company that makes wine under the names of rock groups including the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd, is coming out with blends inspired by the ultra-fabulous Downton Abbey TV series. According to a story in The Drinks Business, the wine is being made with the French company Dulong Grand Vins de Bordeaux.
“Dulong has been in the same family for five generations and has over 130 years of experience, so these are wines the Crawley family would have been proud to serve at Downton,” Bill Zysblat, co-owner of Wines That Rock, told DB.
Wine has been a big part of the British series, from the dastardly (but I confess, I have a soft spot for him anyway) footman Thomas nicking wine from the cellar and then trying to blame it on Bates, to butler Mr. Carson’s painstaking stewardship of the wine service at dinner.
Here is Anna, the maid who recently became Mrs. Bates but only after a great deal of drama, giving pairing advice to a nervous Mr. Mosley when he has to serve as stand-in sommelier.
“Mr. Carson likes to serve two white wines, which you should open and decant just before they eat. A light one for the hors d’oeuvres, then a heavy one with the soup. Keep that going for the fish, and then change to the Claret, which you should really decant now. There’s a pudding wine, and after that whatever they want in the drawing room with their coffee.”
Four wines at dinner and a little something extra in the drawing room after? It’s no wonder the ruling class came a cropper. They must have spent half their time sloshed and the other half nursing right royal hangovers.
And speaking of things that can leave you feeling woozy in the morning, here is the funniest mashup ever, put together by The Colbert Report and featuring the Abbey boys in the world of the gritty TV series Breaking Bad. NSFW, at least not without headphones, because of foul language, albeit foul language delivered in a charmingly upper-crusty fashion. Skip to 1:45 if you don’t want to watch Colbert’s intro.
Cheers, classily.