Tonight’s the Scandal finale, and any good gladiator grapefriend will be grabbing their glass and pouring out copious amounts of red wine. Here are a few essential tips for your viewing party:

most importantly, what WINE to drink???

Red, red, and then some more red. And good red. Olivia has mentioned drinking Bordeaux (love, but it ain’t cheap) and Cyrus once brought over Chateauneuf du Pape (a Rhone blend, and one of my fave wines in the world). Kerry Washington once tweeted that Olivia usually drinks Shiraz, but I’m dubious of this and said so in the article I just wrote for Bon Appetit, “Everything You Need to Know about Scandal and Wine.”

glassware

I’m don’t usually get super precious about what glass you use, but giganto goblets are really fun for swirling and appropriate for red wine. Also, you can pour enough wine in them to avoid having to do refill runs until a commercial. Olivia uses these Camille red wine glasses from Crate & Barrel. But if you’re super special like Aliza Licht, head of Donna Karan PR, you have your own prized sets of promo glasses that say “It’s Handled” and “Shut It Down” etched on them, made by the show’s social media team. She told me, “They’re now a fixture in my apartment. I would never dream of drinking from them!” OK, so much for using those. Just grab some big glasses.

food

Popcorn is by far the food of choice. If you live on more than kernels, whip up some Gettysburgers. That’s the show’s fake burger chain, but I’m sure you can think of a way to make your own burger all Scandal-y. Or not, since you’re just gonna be concentrating on wine.

attire

Of course, you should all be wearing your wine cardigans. This gem of a term was coined by Go Fug Yourself, the fashion and pop culture website. “It speaks to a genre of cardigan that is particular good for drinking wine: large, soft, swingy, rarely with buttons; just something you can tuck around yourself, almost like a blanket and a robe together,” GFY co-founder Heather Cocks explains. “An end-of-the-day cardigan is such a regular person touch, because sometimes we all just want to bury our stresses in something snuggly that won’t judge our fourth glass. When Liv has on her Wine Cardigan, it’s go time and a bottle of Cabernet is about to die.”

Loving that Olivia is turning everyone into such grapefriends! “Scandal always makes me wish I drank more wine,” Heather says. “Liv makes it look like the only remedy for when your mother is a terrorist and your father is black ops and your married lover is the president (and not a very good one). And I’m sure we’ve all been in that situation.”

Obv. Meanwhile, we’ll be watching and waiting to see if Olivia will finally be rattled enough to spill red wine on her white cardigan.  IT’S ALL SO SUSPENSEFUL!!!

Don’t forget to follow along on Twitter @grapefriend for live tweeting. And tomorrow, we’ll have our final wine recap (sniff).