Pairing Wine With 1980s Action TV Shows: Pilot Episode
New project!
I feel like the pair wine with [thing] posts are overdone. There’s plenty of food-with-wine pairing ideas out there (and really, this is the only truly useful idea anyway), and music-with-wine, and movies-with-wine, etc., etc., ad nauseum.
It is with great pleasure,1 then, that I join this cacophony of questionable usefulness with my own series: Pairing Wine With 1980s Action TV Shows.
Up first?
Magnum, P.I.
The Cast of Magnum, P.I.
Magnum, P.I., perhaps the quintessential 1980s Action TV Show, ran from 1980-1988, the bulk of the decade. For those of us alive during its run, but young enough to be distracted neither by Selleck’s dashing good looks (and short shorts), or the bevy of beautiful buxom bikini-bodied beach babes whose company our intrepid hero often shared, this show was all cars, guns, that awesome helicopter T.C. flew tourists around in, and funny stuff happening (usually involving Higgins).
It has basically everything you want from a 1980s Action TV Show: a red hot Ferrari, beautiful Hawaiian scenery, ‘Nam flashbacks, a character created entirely via an Orson Welles voice-over, Doberman Pinschers named after Greek gods, the aforementioned helicopter, and the greatest goddamn mustache ever!
If there is anyone who doesn’t know, Magnum, P.I. is the tale of one Thomas Magnum (Tom Selleck), Vietnam vet, Navy SEAL and intelligence officer-turned-private investigator who is allowed to stay at the palatial Oahu estate of millionaire author Robin Masters (voiced, at least for a while, by the one and only Orson Welles), called “Robin’s Nest,” in exchange for maintaining the estate’s security.
Also present is the estate’s majordomo, Jonathan Higgins, and his two dogs (Zeus and Apollo). Magnum’s friends T.C. and Rick, both Vietnam vets, help him out on his investigations and whatnot.
Oh, and Magnum gets to drive Robin’s freakin’ sweet Ferrari. The show was an action-packed whodunit that stayed pretty episodic except for the animosity-then-friendship between Magnum and Higgins, which developed over time. It was all ’80s.
So what do you pair with a classic? To which wine dare I inextricably link the fortunes of this triumph of a television program? I think it’s easy.
Meritage. Claret. Bordeaux-style blend.
Whatever you call it, and wherever it’s from, the blending of two or more of the five Bordeaux varieties (all together now: cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet franc, malbec, petit verdot) is just as classic as Rick at the King Kamehameha Club, Higgins bitching about one thing or another, Magnum’s dimples, and T.C. getting pissed off because Magnum’s latest “case” caused the busting of some piece of his property (usually, but not always, that helicopter that I keep mentioning).
Sexy, but not brazenly so; a good sense of humor; over-the-top action; a private beach. All these things can describe both Magnum, P.I. and meritage blends (you got me… everything but the sense of humor).
So grab a DVD copy of the second season of Magnum (the first season did not feature the now-legendary theme song, they added it later) and a bottle of meritage, and enjoy. You won’t regret it.
Some specific wines I can recommend:
- 2007 Modus Operandi Cabernet Sauvignon (A-)
- 2007 Leviathan (A)
- 2006 Ferrari-Carano Trésor (B+)
- 2006 Regusci Cabernet Sauvignon (B+)
(This is a pilot episode. Assuming the network picks up this series for its first season, it will be a ten-episode run. If you like it, let the network execs know!)
Footnotes
- et avec un peu de la langue dans la joue ↩