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Tasting Room Presents: Exclusive Wines Inspired by Westworld

Celebrate the show’s return with these delicious new wines

In honor of the highly anticipated premiere of Westworld's third season, Warner Bros and Tasting Room have crafted a limited edition collection of wines to celebrate the series' return.

Directly inspired by the show's thrilling third season, the three eye-catching bottles are each uniquely curated and inspired by characters in the show, each offering a vastly different tasting experience. Check out the wines below, and be sure to get yourself a bottle before they sell out!

2017 Maeve Millay Limestone Coast Shiraz

Westworld wines maeve

Think you know Australian Shiraz? Think again. This tantalizing red will leave you longing for sip after sip — if it doesn't knock you off your feet completely. Like Maeve, it's intriguing and complex, with concentrated flavors of blackberry, vanilla, and cedar culminating in a lingering finish that you won't soon forget. While enjoying this alluring wine wouldn't qualify as a violent delight, it will certainly bring you pleasure that you don't find every day.

Tasting Notes:

Rich, concentrated, blackberry, boysenberry, vanilla, spicy cedar finish, warm lingering finish.

2016 Dolores Abernathy California White Blend

westworld wines

There's a path for everyone — consider yourself lucky to be on the path that's brought you to this enchanting and layered blend of Pinot Gris, Chenin Blanc, Roussanne and Viognier. Inspired by Dolores, this white may seem mild and pleasant at first, but one sip reveals that it packs a punch of vibrant green apple and pear flavors, deftly woven with notes of baking spices. Choose to see the beauty in the world through this captivating wine.

Tasting Notes

Packed with vibrant green apple and pear flavors, deftly woven with notes of baking spices.

2016 Man in Black Rogue Valley Cabernet Sauvignon

westworld wines man in black

Like a maze you desperately want to solve, this compelling Cabernet Sauvignon will take you on some twists and turns. It's a red worth discovering, with its rich, layered flavors of black cherry, coffee bean and dried herbs — just as the Man in Black enjoys a game worth playing. Each taste reveals something new, until you find yourself completely immersed in the wine's brooding, dark profile. Go ahead: Take a sip and unleash your true self.

Tasting Notes

Dark, chewy, savory; Flavors of black cherry, currant, plum, coffee bean, dried herbs; will be adding a portion of barrel aged Cabernet to soften the green notes. Medium-Firm tannins on the finish.

The Westworld Wine sale is live now: Order a case before the next episode today!

TV

Sean Spicer Is Basically RoboCop

Sean Spicer's character arc on Dancing With the Stars is ripped straight from RoboCop.

ABC
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MUSIC

Is Virtual Reality the Future of Concerts? Rezz's EP Debut Showed the Potential (and the Glitches)

EDM artist and multimedia pioneer Rezz released her newest EP last night—in an unconventional format.

Rezz "Beyond The Senses" In Virtual Reality!

At 3 PM in Los Angeles, the EDM artist Rezz began performing her EP, which would be released on streaming services later that night.

She played live, under a vast starry sky, as a massive skull floated over her head.

Meanwhile, at 6 PM at the VR Space in Koreatown, New York, I slipped on the Oculus and entered that starlit venue, which was simultaneously out of this world and accessible from anywhere if you happened to have access to a headset. It took me a while to figure out how to use the set, and some kinks were definitely still being worked out with the app—but soon enough, I was standing inside an alien landscape, staring up at streams of code floating in the sky. I'd entered an alternate dimension without taking a single step.

That's the power of the virtual reality concert, which Rezz used to premier her EP, Beyond the Senses. Using the app TheWaveVR, which has helped other artists such as Imogen Heap perform shows in the virtual realm, Rezz effectively played a show in multiple places at once. Her show also featured the platform Twitch, actually allowing fans to influence the visuals in real time as the performance unfolded.

REZZ - "Beyond The Senses" LIVE world premiere listening partywww.youtube.com

The performance began with the song "Dark Age," which places minor-key guitar riffs over a slow-moving beat to create a dark, mystical haze. It was the perfect initiation to the strange, holographic, industrial world that audience members were transported into.

"Is it enough that I feel like I'm falling / is it enough that I can't stop?" sings Underoath on the EP's second track, "Falling." Like the first track, it blends elements of emo rock with EDM beats. Its lyrics might as well be talking about the rapidly advancing pace of technology, which has changed the DNA of the music industry, altering everything about how music is created and consumed.

The third track Rezz performed, "Kiss of Death," plants industrial beats against floaty, hyper-processed vocals, to create a psychedelic soundscape. The EP's final track, "Lonely (feat. the Rigs)," is one of its best, using a sultry beat to pull audiences in, then breaking down into a sparse, echoey drop in the second half.

Overall, Rezz's EP is a tightly wound, high-stakes collection of furious rhythms and alternatively harsh and dreamlike soundscapes. Certainly, if any genre is to be matched with VR, it would be this kind of disorienting, intensely transportive emo-EDM fusion. VR and EDM blend together perfectly, both using synthetic sounds and super-advanced processing techniques to create otherworldly dimensions that test the limits of space and sound, all through the mediums of MIDI and code.

In a virtual reality concert, you lose some of the vividness and impact of real shows—for example, you don't get the pounding, booming grind of a live bass or the smoke and sweat of a real venue (depending on your headphones and surroundings, of course). But in the technosphere, things that could never have happened in the real world become possible. Red lightning flared out of Rezz's hands as soldiers, gigantic hands, and disembodied objects careened like UFOs through the space. Sinewy tendrils floated across the domed sky, reflecting the soundwaves. Huge trees grew towards the stars, then split into smoke. Other concertgoers looked like floating Pillsbury Doughboys with screen names glowing above their heads.

VR concerts have not become quite as popular as people thought they might when the Oculus debuted, maybe because of the cumbersome nature of the headset, the likelihood of glitches, or the still-holographic appearance of the simulated performers. Still, acts like Rezz's prove that there's still a very promising future for VR, which has the potential to revolutionize the touring industry. She's not alone in taking advantage of the medium. Recently, the startup MelodyVR signed deals with 600 artists, including Jay-Z, and festivals such as Coachella and Global Citizen have both incorporated VR into their concert-going experiences.

Many have raised the concern that VR concerts might not be the best thing for music. After all, touring is one of the most profitable parts of modern musicians' careers, and if audience members start choosing to stream shows through VR instead of paying for a live experience, this could threaten the lucrative stadium circuit.

It's hard to deny the amazing spectrum of possibilities that VR presents for music, though. Audience members could immerse themselves in music videos or communicate directly with each other and the performers, or they could see shows they were previously unable to access or afford. In addition, VR audiences can't use cell phones (yet), so they have to focus solely on the music.

Image via thissongissick.com

And just imagine if musicians never had to board a plane to perform, and if you never had to miss a concert again—if all you had to do was slip on a headset in order to enter an alternate dimension of your favorite musician's design?

VR could very well determine the future of music. Before that happens, though, there's still work to be done. I was able to see Rezz's broadcast, but the whole time I was gaping at the beauty of the simulated landscape and testing out my new virtual body, I couldn't hear any music. Staff members were running around, trying to fix the glitch and promising that it wasn't caused by their software; by the time they got it working, the show had finished.

The experience revealed that although VR concerts have huge potential, for now, there's still nothing to rival good old-fashioned live music.

TV

How “The Real World” Reclaimed Relevance Through Diversity

For this new go-around, The Real World: Atlanta raised the casting age limit from 24 to 34, resulting in five cast members who add significant depth to the reboot.

MTV

It's been two years since the last iteration of MTV's The Real World disgraced our screens. Now it's back, and most surprisingly, The Real World: Atlanta doesn't suck.

Moving the series to Facebook Watch, producers hit the reset button, rebooting the franchise to enmesh it with social media and today's consumer culture. Even when the show treads on well-worn tropes à la the "religious southern virgin," it harks back to what we originally loved about it: different people from all walks of life coming together, learning from each other, and confronting the status quo.

When The Real World launched in 1992, it was a ground-breaking social experiment hailed for its documentary-style depiction of issues like abortion, substance abuse, and death. Its representation of sexuality and race served as an educational tool for a young early-'90s MTV generation. At 9 years old, Julie and Kevin's New York argument was the first time I really considered racial differences, and Pedro Zamora's activism on the San Francisco season helped explain homosexuality and the AIDS epidemic to me in ways my parents couldn't.

In recent years, the series has shapeshifted repeatedly, disintegrating into a heaping mess of producer manipulation and sadness. Stunt casting's led to unstable situations that seemed like mental warfare on its participants: Exes moved into the house as permanent roomies on Real World:Ex-Plosion, while former enemies moved in on Skeletons and Bad Blood, which were equal parts cloying and distasteful. The show became a hollow shell of its former self, an extravagant circus act that threw ethics entirely out the window. If you bailed on the series miles back, no one would blame you.

But for this new go-around, The Real World: Atlanta raised the casting age limit from 24 to 34, resulting in five cast members who add significant depth to the reboot. Four of its seven cast members are minorities, leaning into the cultural demand for more diverse representation on our TV screens. Highlights include: Yasmin, a half-Muslim pansexual art teacher and champion of body positivity; Arely, a Mexican DACA recipient and mother to a four-year-old; Dondre, a pansexual black man who's vocal about supporting Trump and the wall; and Justin, a Georgia State University grad focused on African-American equality and social justice issues.

For the first time in a long time, the cast actually has something to say, and the diversity in the house has led to storylines that largely match up with today's most pressing issues. Arely's politically-charged immigration story—she can't complete her nursing exams due to her DACA status—conflicts with Dondre's strict Republican opinions, setting off Justin, who can't fathom how a black LGBTQIA person could ever support the current president.

And then there's Meagan, the virgin from Louisiana who's the easiest target of the bunch. After admitting she's not comfortable around homosexuality because of what's written in the Bible ("The ones that are shoving it down my throat, I can't deal with...because in the Bible it says one man and one woman"), her roommates pointed out Christian teachings commonly overlooked in everyday society, even by devout Catholics. Dondre went so far to ask her, "Are you half-assing your religion?" His question sent her into a spiral.

Meagan confessed, "What they're saying makes so much sense, and I almost feel this guilt for saying that. If there are other things in the Bible that we do, why is that one thing not OK? I feel like my whole identity is being challenged."

In the most recent episode, Tovah, a social worker from Arizona, discussed her sexual assault with her roommates, admitting that she lost her virginity when she was raped at 17.

"He started texting me and harassing me, like, 'I raped you. Have a great f**ed up life,'" she told the house. "It definitely changed who I was. It's a big part of how I act around people, how I view sex, how I view relationships," she continued in a confessional.

These seven new strangers aren't afraid to open up, resulting in a season that's as back to basics as we're likely to get. Thanks to its diversified casting and focus on issues affecting Americans today, the Atlanta season is a return to form. Is it perfect? Hell no. (The words and graphics plastered over every scene is damn near infuriating, for one.) The show will never reclaim its San Francisco or Seattle glory days, but it's still a refreshing pivot that could extend the franchise's life expectancy...if it can continue avoiding off-brand twists. Come for the topical life discussions and stay for the club treks, hot tub makeouts, and drunken verbal brawls; it's still The Real World, after all.