Okay, so who said this to whom?
50 shades of wine drinking pleasure: EL James’ wine
“If you spill the wine, Miss Steele, I will punish you.”
No prizes for guessing. It’s the S&M-loving hunk Christian Grey to his lady love Anastasia Steele in the runaway racy bestseller, Fifty Shades of Grey, which introduced millions to the oohs, aahs and ouches of sado-masochism in the bedroom and beyond. Now, author EL James (@E_L_James), a self-confessed wine lover, introduces the joys of wines, which she says she has ‘personally blended’ to her millions of breathless fans. “And now, for the good stuff,” she tweeted, sharing a link with the Fifty Shades website which sells the wines (http://www.fiftyshadeswine.com), advising fans to “curl up with a glass to savour the romance and passion.” (Between whippings?). Wine, she says, plays an important role in the books, ‘adding sensuality to the scenes’.
Ms James launched two wines: Red Satin 2010, a blend of Petite Sirah and Syrah aged in a combination of new and seasoned French oak barrels ($17.99), and White Satin 2012, a blend of Gewürztraminer and Sauvignon Blanc, aged in stainless steel ‘to preserve its delicate and rich character’.
There are 17 moments where wine is added to scenes in the trilogy, according to the site. Wines that are drunk during the sexual odyssey range from champagne (Bollinger Grande Année Rosé 1999) to cheap plonk, with the occasional Sancerre and Pouilly Fumé in for good measure. (Christian has decent taste in wine, at any rate.)
“Loved, loved, loved” gushed one fan in an on-site review, sounding suitably breathless and Ana-like. It’s easy to dismiss this as another Fifty Shades marketing gimmick, and the wines are quite possibly not going to make it to the Wine Spectator Top 100 list any time soon. But equally possibly, they will earn their maker EL James, even more moolah than she can handle.
A case of whipping up some passion for wine?
(I must confess I have not been able to get through book number 1, leave alone the others. But maybe now would be the time to try again… if nothing else, then to search for the wine references!)
