If you need a quick shot of utter delight to get you through to the weekend, Matthews Goode and Rhys have you covered.
The two actors (you may know Goode from A Single Man or The Good Wife, and Rhys from The Americans or Brothers and Sisters) have just released a trailer for The Wine Show, their new 13-episode series on UK television network ITV that sees them drink wine together in "their villa" in Italy, while learning a thing or two between glasses and laughs.
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But the trailer promises more than just two Matthews bantering, as The Wine Show also sent its production team "to 12 different countries on six continents to bring back great wine stories."
So even if you're just excited to get lost in Goode's dimply smile and/or Rhys's magnificent "The Americans was on hiatus" beard, you may get a crash course in wine production too. (Though if you do get distracted by Rhys's beard, you're not alone: Goode added in The Wine Show's official press release that "Matthew Rhys runs Father Christmas very close on the world’s greatest beard.")
While it may seem like The Wine Show came out of nowhere, Goode and Rhys — who first met on 2002's Deathwatch and became friends after working together on BBC's 2013 miniseries Death Comes to Pemberley — have been hinting at the possibility for years.
When Rhys interviewed Goode for Interview magazine in December 2014, the pair discussed the possibility of doing a wine show, but it seemed like just a friendly joke:
GOODE: Me and Matthew Rhys are going to do a show about wine.
RHYS: Where we whine about being in show business: "It's awful being an actor, try this Margaux." Should it be called Whine Wine? Or Whine Not?
GOODE: Vin vin.
RHYS: And it will all take place in a van.
GOODE: I'm really excited about it.
RHYS: So am I.
(The entire conversation is a screwball delight, so I'll wait here while you check it out. Done? Day brightened? Lovely, now let's carry on.)
But what initially sounded like joke turned out not to be one, after all: Also in December 2014, a New York Times profile of Goode confirmed that the show — and his friendship with Rhys — was for real:
[Goode] cheerfully digressed on various subjects … how he had already drunk a bottle of the claret he bought on eBay for Christmas dinner; his success in quitting smoking and switching to e-cigarettes; the television program about wine he has signed up to film in France with his friend Matthew Rhys (the star of "The Americans" with whom he drank the claret)…
And in February 2015, the Wall Street Journal confirmed that Rhys and Goode would indeed be filming the series that summer.
But alas, while the trailer promises a romantic comedy-level combo of camaraderie and decadence, there is no set release date for The Wine Show beyond "spring 2016," and that date only applies to UK channels on ITV and ITV4. It's not immediately clear when it'll be available to view in the United States, but maybe the series' partnership with Amazon hints towards future distribution on that platform.
So for now, to borrow the words of co-host Goode: "I'm not going anywhere, for a bit. I'm just going to luxuriate here for a second."
Matthews, luxuriating. (ITV)