From Bordeaux to Birmingham: Peaky Blinders Grand Cru
Shelby Company Ltd. St.-Emilion Grand Cru, hand-packed by the Peaky Blinders themselves
By order of the Peaky Blinders, Bordeaux’s Vignobles Bardet has partnered with the hit BBC series to make a line of totally legitimate Shelby Company Ltd. Bordeaux blends.
“It’s easy to imagine a character like Thomas Shelby importing his own wine from our great-great-grandfather Jean Roy in the prestigious winemaking region of St.-Emilion, and we believe that these two reds are exactly reflecting the wine profiles he would have chosen," said winegrower and Peaky Blinders fan Thibault Bardet, whose family has been in the wine business since 1704 (and who we last found in a bit of hot water after making some unauthorized Game of Thrones–inspired wines). "We are extremely proud to produce these wines that capture the true essence of Peaky Blinders.”
The Shelby Company Ltd. St.-Emilion 2019 ($180 for 6 bottles) is a Merlot-dominated blend with Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. It’s "a dark and intense color similar to Tommy’s eyes; with an expressive nose of black currant and black fruits,” says Bardet. “In the mouth, the right balance is struck between a powerful and complex Arthur, and a smooth and elegant Polly." Only 15 barrels were made of the Shelby Company Ltd St.-Emilion Grand Cru 2018 ($235 for 6 bottles), a Merlot–Cabernet Franc blend.
“Peaky Blinders continues to be a journey into the unexpected,” said Jamie Glazebrook, executive producer of Peaky Blinders for Caryn Mandabach Productions. “In series 5, Churchill outlines Tommy Shelby’s progress as ‘a tent, then a boat, then a house, now a mansion.’ To which we can now add a vineyard! We could not be more delighted about this collaboration, the results of which are truly delicious.”
Both wines are available in the U.S. exclusively via the wine app Vinsent.wine, a global direct-to-consumer platform for selling wine. Vinsent was founded in 2018 by tech entrepreneurs and wine lovers Gil Picovsky and Jacob Ner-David, who were inspired to create the app when they realized how hard it was for U.S. consumers to find the Israeli wines from Ner-David’s Jezreel Valley Winery.
And for Peaky Blinders fans still thirsting for more, the sixth and final season is currently in production (with a movie possibly on the horizon following that). And the fictional Shelby hasn’t just gotten into the non-fictional wine business: There’s a real-life Shelby Pale Ale made by England’s Thornbridge Brewery, and a Peaky Blinders Cocktail Book (White Lion, 2020) featuring 40 Blinders-inspired recipes.
