Fancy a drop of Klingon bloodwine? Vino now linked to favourite shows
Mr. Carson, bring me my wine! And you, too, Mr. Spock.
In what is perhaps the strongest evidence yet of wine’s power to unite, fans of period drama Downton Abbey, scifi classic Star Trek and the proudly down- home Duck Dynasty can all buy wines bottled under licence to their favourite show.
The Downton Abbey wines ( about $ 17), a white and a red, come from Wines That Rock, a company that makes wine under the names of rock groups, including the Rolling Stones.
Wine has been a big part of the British series, with butler Mr. Carson taking great pains over which wines to serve with dinner.
Producers of the show, who are known for their faithful attention to detail, approached the family and asked for permission to use the name, then made a prop bottle to use in filming. “We were thrilled,” says Aline Baly, co- owner and director of marketing and communications for Chateau Coutet.
Meanwhile, Duck Dynasty, an A& E show about a family business that makes products for duck hunters, primarily a duck call, might not seem such a seamless fit for the wine world.
But Bob Torkelson, chief operating officer of Trinchero Family Estates, the Napa Valley winery that makes the Duck Commander wines, says the Trincheros and the Robertsons ( the Louisiana family featured on the show) have a lot in common in terms of running family businesses.
And what of Star Trek? Is there a space- wine continuum? Yes, actually, there is, says Peter Messa, spokesman for Vinport which handles marketing for the Star Trek wines.
“Star Trek has many wine references in it, the most famous probably being Klingon bloodwine,” he notes. In fact, food and drink plays a big part in the series, with toasts often raised to celebrate interspecies diplomacy and other milestones.