Beverage of the Week: Birthday Sex Wine. Yep, that's a thing now.

The wine with underpants on the label is the fancy one.

Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage (or food) that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.

I can appreciate Jeremih’s pivot. In spring 2024, a member of his public relations team has reached out with an email promising “Birthday Sex Wine.”

Without context, that’s a string of words destined straight for the spam filter. Fortunately, it’s very real. That was the R&B artist’s first single. Just the first two words. You remember it, I bet. Jeremih pronounces “couch” with four syllables. It’s the song that posits the perfect gift was Jeremih’s [expletive] after all.

If not, you’d definitely know him from Don’t Tell ‘Em. Either way, the dude is roughly a thousand times platinum but fame doesn’t last forever so it’s always wise to diversify.

Thus, Birthday Sex Wine. There do not appear to be any restrictions on the wine itself. You can drink it, literally, any day of the year. It in no way promises coitus or even smooches. But there is a pair of lacy panties on the label, which, huh.

Before I dig in, a caveat. I am not a wine drinker. My exposure to the medium came pounding bottles of whatever leftovers customers had left behind at the end of long night rowing gondolas in downtown Providence. This was not the launch pad you’d expect, and now I lean heavily toward beers and cocktails over wine. I don’t hate wine, I just don’t really drink it that often.

Let’s see if that clouds my judgment of, sigh, Birthday Sex.

Birthday Sex Wine: B

Why yes, that is a poorly printed pair of panties where the label should be. Ironically, right below where it says “naked chardonnay.” And what eager drinker *wouldn’t* want wine with underpants on it? Finally, a white wine for the ladies out there.

In fairness, it does seem to be a nice pair of panties. I assume the Franzia version of this would be a Hanes Her Way combo in plain gray. These are the debates you get when you’re talking wine. That’s why Sideways was such a box office smash.

Anyway, it smells… well it smells like white wine. Grapes and oak and the stark reminder I don’t drink nearly enough wine to know what the hell I’m talking about. The first sip is smooth and very easy to drink. There’s none of the harshness that can put off a novice wino like myself. The flavor doesn’t pop once it hits your tongue but instead lingers and builds.

That turns into intense sweet grape with a hint of warmth and some of that aforementioned woodiness. It sticks to the roof of your mouth a little, lingering with minor sourness rather than dryness toward the end. It’s not my thing, but it’s not something I wouldn’t drink either. With that in mind, I asked my lady friend/roommate/wife, who actually does drink wine, what she thought.

I like it. I like dryer, more oaky chardonnays and this leans that way, but subtle. It isn’t sweet or too buttery either, which is how I like my wines.

Apparently they are trying to keep it in an accessible price point, so bonus. There you go. Review. Done. :)

Would I drink it instead of a Hamm’s?

This is a pass/fail mechanism where I compare whatever I’m drinking to my baseline cheap beer. That’s the standby from the land of sky-blue waters, Hamm’s. So the question to answer is: on a typical day, would I drink, sigh, Birthday Sex over a cold can of Hamm’s?

Again, this feels unfair since I rarely drink wine in the first place. It’s a totally reasonable wine that tastes fine chilled. I could easily power through a couple glasses at a dinner party where I don’t know the hosts well enough to ask for a beer. But also I would make sure my keys stay in my pocket the whole night, because things are gonna get weird later.