And we come to the end of a great journey. A journey that took me far longer than I’d intended to complete, but here we are.
Just as iconic as any Action TV Show from the 80s, just as important as Magnum, P.I. or The Dukes of Hazzard to the development of yours truly and all the pop culture crap I can stick in my head, The A-Team is a fitting finale to this experiment gone awry.
Templeton “Faceman” Peck, John “Hannibal” Smith, H.M. Murdock, and B.A. Baracus. These four soldiers of fortune shepherded me through my early years, airing from 1983 to 1986, a total of five glorious seasons.
This show had it all: guns, disguises, cars flying through the air and flipping over, explosions, Mr. T, that awesome, ridiculously awesome van, and one of the greatest theme songs and greatest intro sequences of all time.
They recently tapped into my nostalgia and the nostalgia of millions of others by rebooting this series as a movie last summer. I didn’t see it. I probably will at some point, but it doesn’t really matter to me. It doesn’t look like this:
It almost brings a tear to my eye, it’s so beautiful.
So, which wine? Which wine will be my final pairing in this, the Pairing Wine With 1980s Action TV Shows series?
Tawny Port.
Interested? Intrigued? Incensed? Hopefully at least one of those…
Why tawny port? A few reasons. First, tawny is powerful stuff… usually upwards of 20% alcohol by volume, often aged for decades before being released. The A-Team were powerful, this is self-evident. It’s often misunderstood. Many people do not know there are port wines that are not deep, dark purple or red, or that do not taste of raspberry and (at least for the crappier ones) cough syrup. The A-Team were convicted of a crime they didn’t commit, wanted by their own government.
And finally, tawny port has a core of gold. The A-Team had a heart of gold. (Or, collectively, four hearts of gold. Whatever.)
The A-Team was always helping out people who couldn’t pay them, or finding out halfway through a mission that it was going to be ridiculously harder going than they’d been led to believe. But they always persevered. It was the right thing to do.
So, to the brave souls of The A-Team, raise a glass of tawny! Here are a couple I can recommend: