Sort of bored with this Sylvia affair. She seems too frumpy for Don. All of his other tryst women have at least been cool and/or intelligent in some way. She and her poofy hair just seem really lame and matronly. Her saving grace: she’s a grapefriend.
When they were at dinner (winner: clunkiest set-up to get Don and Sylvia alone), she was drinking red wine while Don ordered his usual Old Fashioned. I don’t think Arnold was drinking anything, but he was on call.
Then when Arnold leaves, Don doesn’t order wine for dinner but does the next best thing: asks her if she wants another glass or – HERE IT COMES – wants to split a bottle! Maybe he is in love! Click on the Vine link below to see this shocking scene:
Don asks if she wants a bottle. She calls him out on his ungrapefriendiness. #MadMen #wine vine.co/v/bFvnIZHhQww
— grapefriend (@grapefriend) April 15, 2013
Sylvia is smart enough to know Don is a grape enemy and winds up just getting another glass for herself (which Don ordered for her).
I don’t know what kind of wine it was, but she ordered branzino and I’d pretty much never have red wine with white fish. You want to go with a crisp white – some people would say Vermentino but I’m not a fan of most Italian whites, so I’d go for a dry, full Alsatian Pinot Gris or Riesling. Even Don’s steak diavolo would’ve been a bad match for her red, since spicy food and tannic wine don’t go well together. This wine is obviously a symbol of their mismatched relationship.
So we racked up two more glasses. I do find it odd that the biggest grapefriends on the show are all women (Megan, Betty, even Sylvia and Faye), and yet only very recently did women surpass men (52%) as bigger wine drinkers in the US. Take note, Weiner.
Mad Men season 6 wine count: 8
Great interpretation of the scene! I didn’t realize branzino was a white fish so I totally missed that point. Also I love how she caught his bluff about ordering the bottle!
I know – it made me start to like her!
Ha! I hope I will be able to tempt you to taste some great Italian whites and see if you change your mind. There’s a lot of very good Italian whites that unfortunately are just not so well known. 🙂
I do love Kerner – and most anything Alto Adige!
That’s an excellent start then!!! 🙂