If you’re an Entourage fan, you’ve seen Jeremy’s Piven’s character “hug it out” many times during the HBO show’s run. At the Emmy Awards this past Sunday, some friends and I witnessed a supremely celebratory Piven chug it out with Möet & Chandon rosé, which was the official bubbly of the annual HBO post-Emmys bash, held at Los Angeles’ massive, tented Pacific Design Center.
Celebrating his much-deserved Emmy as Best Supporting Actor, the stubbly, sweaty, ascoted Piven held court at a table in front of the venue – pink bubbly flowing like faucet – as industry honcos and starlets buzzed around him like electrons around an atom. With the volcanic energy we expect from his HBO alter-ego Ari Gold, Piven later jumped up on a platform near the dance floor to join the live percussionists who were playing along to Madonna and Michael Jackson, banging it out on a set of steel drums with the possessed look of a man set aflame by Möet and victory.
Grape nuts should know that post-telecast the Governors Ball — traditionally the first-stop on the Emmys party circuit — saw three wines being poured. The bubbly was Laurent-Perrier L-P Brut NV, a rich swig with faint apple aromas and lemony lift, while the white was 2004 Beaulieu Vineyard Napa Chardonnay, a classic New World smoothie with pineapple and apple scents and a kiss of cedar wood. Most compelling was the red: the 2002 Beaulieu George de Latour Private Reserve Cabernet – a ballsy blackberry bomb infused with licorice, earth, and muscular tannins, the kind of hug-it-out bruiser that Ari would pop celebrating the close of Aquaman III.
