Sommeliers Review the Fifty Shades of Grey Wines

“A guilty pleasure at best.”

“Like gummy peaches coated in bland movie-theater popcorn butter.”

“This wine tastes like pain.”

Trusted wine experts certainly aren’t pulling any punches when they take a shot at the latest release from Fifty Shades of Grey, the housewife-lauded, bondage-laden novel-turned-franchise by author E. L. James.

While taste-testing Fifty Shades’ two wines—a white and a red—for Vanity Fair, critics are first quick to point out a notable lack of sexually-charged branding, which one would expect from the particularly steamy series. On the flavor front, it’s the generic profile that catches the attention of the professionals. “It’s the sort of wine you order by saying, ‘I’ll have the red,’” notes our very own editor in chief Talia Baiocchi. “And [it] tastes like what you get in return on American Airlines.’” Head over to Vanity Fair for a full list of reviews from a handful of the country’s finest sommeliers. [Vanity Fair] [Photo: Flickr/Petras Gagilas]