It’s been six months since Hallmark Channel introduced its own line of wines and added a subscription wine service to its website.
This week, the network added a new wine to its collection called The Perfect Pairing. A late-harvest sauvignon blanc, the wine has a finished residual sugar of 17 percent, placing it in the dessert wine category.
According to the network, it was “inspired by the Hallmark Channel original movie, The Perfect Pairing, which tells the story of a passionate vintner, a visiting wine critic and the happy accident that brings them together.”
The movie will premiere this Saturday. Starring Nazneen Contractor and Brennan Elliott, it follows a woman who bumps her head during a trip to a vineyard and develops amnesia. The vineyard owner takes her in and tries to help her get her memory back.
It’s part of Hallmark Channel’s “New Year, New Movies” lineup, which includes four original movies, with a new film premiering every Saturday night in January.
Opposites attract
In the movie, Contractor plays a cynical and anonymous food and wine critic who visits a local vineyard run by Elliott. When she realizes it is the same place she panned in a previous review, she turns to leave, only to slip on a patch of ice and bump her head.
Elliott is the vineyard owner, a kindhearted single father who does everything to help Contractor regain her memory.
In a scene Hallmark shared with ET Online, Elliott gives Contractor a tour of the winery and takes her into a room kept at 14 degrees, which he says is the perfect temperature for making ice wine.
When she says it will make a great addition to the tour, he explains the area is only temporary.
“My dad says it’s too expensive to maintain an ice wine room at 14 degrees,” he says, opening a bottle. “He wants us to just rely on what we know best to get our customers back.”
He explains that a particularly negative review caused them to lose a lot of customers and that he and his family are doing everything they can to keep the business alive.
“These reviewers are very brutal,” Elliott says.
“Well, they don’t sound like very happy people,” Contractor replies. “Looking for the negative in everything must be exhausting.”
Hallmark favorites
Both Contractor and Elliott have appeared in several Hallmark movies. Contractor starred in The Christmas Ring (2020) and A Winter Getaway (2021). Elliott starred in the Flower Shop Mysteries series for Hallmark Movies and Mysteries and the All of My Heart romantic comedy series with Lacey Chabert.
In an Instagram post, Contractor called The Perfect Pairing her favorite Hallmark movie so far.
“So much love and labor went into this one,” she wrote in the caption. “From my heart to yours.”
The Perfect Pairing will air on Saturday, January 15, on Hallmark Channel at 8/7c.