Over 10 million people are watching “Downton Abbey” in its fifth season, according to Nielsen, a record high for PBS and the period drama – yep, America is officially obsessed with this British upper-class family. It’s safe to say we’re pretty obsessed with the Crawley family here at VinePair as well. Over the last five years we’ve gotten to know them well and, apart from their inner dealings, relationship struggles and of course monetary trials and tribulations, if there’s one thing we’ve noticed night in and night out, it’s that the Crawleys love to drink. But we wondered, what exactly are the Crawleys drinking and what would it be like to spend an evening both upstairs and down?

To solve this puzzle, we sought out Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre, a professor of history at Trinity College in Connecticut who specializes not only in British history during the time of the show – she actually teaches a class on Downton – but also in the history of drinks during the time period.

“All of us could throw a Downton themed dinner party if we wanted,” said Regan-Lefebvre. “You’ll just need a set of silver fish knives, a copy of the Larousse Gastronomique, a strong constitution, and a trust fund.”

Almost all of the wine drunk in Britain during the period of Downton was consumed by the upper-classes. Because Britain was not a wine-producing country, the libation had to be imported, causing the wine to be quite expensive for most in the middle class and below. With no winemaking tradition of their own, there wasn’t any affordable wine for casual meals as existed in France and Italy; in fact, the average per bottle consumption for most Brits during the time period of Downton was only two bottles per year.