Put The Synthale Down: Chateau Picard Wine Is Real, And Here

Put The Synthale Down: Chateau Picard Wine Is Real, And Here

Well, actually, Chateau Picard has already been real for quite a while. But ahead of Star Trek: Picard, you’ll now be able to enjoy an episode or six alongside a bottle of Jean-Luc’s finest.

Château Picard in Saint-Estèphe, France had actually been making wine in Bordeaux long before those fictional Picards showed up in La Barre. But now it’s teamed up with CBS and Wines That Rock to bring you an official version of the wine that made the name of the Enterprise captain’s family, ever since the vineyard was first glimpsed in The Next Generation’s fourth season.

Being made to tie in, of course, with the upcoming Star Trek: Picard — which sees Jean-Luc retire from Starfleet and attempt to follow in his brother’s footsteps, overseeing the family’s wine-making business — the 2016 wine is an 85 per cent Cabernet Sauvignon and 15 per cent Merlot blend, which means nothing to me as someone who doesn’t drink.

But StarTrek.com assures us that it is “subtly smoky and spicy,” and has “a bright, fresh, clean-tasting style,” which… sounds good? Subtly smoky and spicy feels like a decent description of Jean-Luc at his wiliest, to be fair.

Really, what you’re paying for here is the fact the bottle also replicates the label seen in the first Picard teaser, so it really is like owning your very own Picard-made wine, a few centuries earlier than you should.

To boot, alongside the Picard wine, there will also be a 2017 vintage United Federation of Planets wine, a Zinfandel produced not by Château Picard, but Dry Creek & Russian River Valleys in Sonoma County, California. This one sounds like an althogther more fruity endeavour, with “concentrated strawberry, blackberry, and plum preserves,” and, in a manner that sounds oddly distressing, “a chewy-layered mid-palate.”

Whatever floats your boat, I guess. Both wines will be displayed at the Star Trek Las Vegas convention this week, ahead of a special release soon in a “1701 edition” two pack in the U.S.. If you’re able to get your hands on one of these bottles, engage that palate of yours and get sloshed for us, why don’t you?