About six or seven years ago, I started writing a series of blogs called Drink & Watch, focused on movies and television that are incredibly fun to drink along with because of the way they portray alcohol. Now that Omicron has pretty much gutted our social lives, many of us are hunkering down at home once again, binging whatever new show we can find, while pillaging our wine cellars and home bars.
There are a number of shows releasing new seasons of programming this month, and one of them is the M. Night Shyamalan-produced suspense series The Servant on Apple TV+. Given that I had completely missed out on season one, I decided to blow through all ten episodes over the weekend and—boy—was I shocked by what I discovered. Not only is Rupert Grint a much better actor than I gave him credit for in the Harry Potter films, The Servant is also a giant homage to wine and food.
Without giving too much away, I will say that most of the drinking is done by Rupert’s character Julian, and his brother-in-law Sean (played by Toby Kebbell), a famous chef with an incredible wine cellar beneath his incredible Philadelphia townhouse. These guys pop so many corks over the course of the first episode, that I was inspired to pour a few glasses right along with them.
So what do they drink?
DRC? Yes. Châteauneuf-du-Pape? Yes. Sine Qua Non? Yes. Anything and everything. The first place the boys meet as soon as Julian comes to visit is downstairs in the cellar, swirling, smelling, and tasting like two serious aficionados. It’s incredibly enticing.
And the show is pretty good.
-David Driscoll