Love Is Blind Sold a Wine. The Sober Guy Got Cut.

In February 2024, two weeks before Love Is Blind's sixth season premiered, Netflix and Cupcake Vineyards launched a chardonnay called Love Is Wine. The bottle was gold, designed to match the goblets the contestants drink from in every episode. For the ad campaign, former cast members went back into the pods and confessed they'd fallen in love. The twist: the one they'd fallen for was the wine. You could pick it up at Walmart for $16.99.

Season six also had a contestant, Matthew Duliba, who went into the pods without drinking. He lives alcohol-free and did the whole experiment sober. When the episodes aired, none of that was in them. He wrote afterward that it was a key part of his story that was never disclosed, and a big reason he struggled to connect at first. He also said production tried to get him to drink anyway, and that a producer yelled at him for encouraging the other guys to be careful with their drinking.

So in one season, the show sold a wine and cut the sober guy. That tells you what alcohol is on Love Is Blind. It isn't background. It's the brand.

The goblet is the logo

Think about what you picture when someone says Love Is Blind. The pods. The wall. And the gold goblet.

Alcohol is in the pods, in the private quarters, at dinners, at family meetups, at every celebration. When I watched Love Is Blind: UK, it was the same story with a different accent: bartenders pouring shots in slow motion, sunlight on the ice, family members arriving with gin, the guys pedaling through town on a bar bike with beers in hand. The drinks aren't just there. They're lit, styled and framed like a character.

The framing is no accident. A prop that shows up in every scene and then turns up as a product on store shelves is doing a job.

Why does reality TV need the drink?

There are three reasons alcohol runs through reality TV, and none of them are about love.

It's good business. When a show's signature glass becomes a licensed wine, the drinking on screen is also marketing.

It's good television. Alcohol lowers inhibitions, and lower inhibitions mean louder fights, bigger confessions and messier moments. That makes better clips than twelve people calmly talking about their needs over dinner.

It's what TV has always done. Drinking has been default adult scenery on screen for decades. You pour when you celebrate, when you're nervous, when you meet the parents. It's so familiar we stop seeing it.

Familiarity is the one that gets us. When something is everywhere, it becomes invisible.

What the edit left out

Duliba's choice didn't need to be a storyline. It could have been a ten-second moment in the pods: "I don't drink, so I'll have the sparkling water." That's it.

Leaving it out sends its own message. On this show, everyone drinks, abstaining doesn't exist, and the one person who did it got edited into someone viewers didn't understand. For a show built on the idea that real connection happens without the usual props, the one prop it won't take away is the glass.

The show follows the same pattern I wrote about in The Poison Is the Experience: TV either makes the drink part of the fun, or makes the person without one the joke. Love Is Blind does the first and skips the second by never showing the non-drinker at all.

We've seen this movie before

Cigarettes used to be everywhere on TV too. Characters smoked in offices, bedrooms and restaurants, and nobody blinked. Then the culture shifted, and smoking on screen became rare enough that you notice it now.

Alcohol hasn't had that moment. We know more than ever about what it does to our health and our judgment, and it's still the default prop for romance. I dug into how TV sets that default in Landman and the Alcohol Default.

What to watch for in Boston

When Love Is Blind: Boston premieres on October 14, try this while you watch:

• Count the goblets. Notice how often a drink is in someone's hand at the big emotional moments.
• Watch who pours. Pay attention to how often a drink arrives right before a hard conversation.
• Look for the other choice. See if anyone ever orders something without alcohol, and whether the camera keeps it in the shot.

My guess is you'll see a lot of gold and not much sparkling water. But the people choosing it are out there. More people are drinking less than ever, and that doesn't stop at the pod door.

Temperates Takeaway

Nobody needs a gold goblet to fall in love. Duliba went into the pods sober, and he's the one the show chose not to show you. Enjoy the season. Just notice who's holding the bottle, and who got edited out.

Not sure what job your drinks are doing for you? Are You Secretly a Temperate? will tell you.