COUGAR TOWN #18, JOSH HOPKINS, COURTENEY COX, CHRISTA MILLER (ABC/ADAM LARKEY)

I admittedly watch way too much television. I wish I could at least defend my bad behavior by claiming to watch documentaries or other educational programming, but I can’t do that. No, truth be told, I watch crap — and lots of it. Case in point, I spent last Wednesday evening watching ABC’s Cougar Town, Courtney Cox’s current sitcom.

The saving grace of last week’s show (and the reason for this post – I promise there is a reason) is that much of it was about wine, which was the first time I could recall wine taking center stage in primetime. The plot centered on Courtney Cox’s character, Jules, and her poor wine drinking habits, i.e. drinking too often and too much. Not expressly stated, but certainly indicated visually, was her equally appalling wine etiquette (or rather the lack of it  — filling the glasses to the very top and slurping from the glass, hands-free). Yes, slurping can be considered appropriate behavior with wine tasting, but in this case it wasn’t.  In addition, Sheryl Crow made an appearance as a wine sales representative. For various reasons, which I will not elaborate, Jules decides to give up wine for a month, but, [spoiler alert] eventually caves in and drinks. As they say, “Everything in moderation…including moderation.”

In any case, it wasn’t that the show was so good, but as noted, it was unusual to see wine given such prominence in a television show’s plot and signals a recognition from the writers of this show, if not the network overall, that wine has finally become an important part of the American culture. We’ll just have to stay tuned to see when and where wine will next appear.