TBS’ popular comedy “Cougar Town” rivals “Mad Men” for its depictions of characters drinking onscreen. But where the drinking in “Mad Men” comes across as more of a crutch for its morose characters, on “Cougar Town” it’s all in good fun. Cox’s protagonist Jules and her rowdy friends sip wine so often, and with such joy and good humor, it has become part of the viewer experience, with fans launching their own “Cougar Town” drinking/viewing parties. And today, with the launch of a special billboard-sized mosaic in Los Angeles’ The Grove, TBS shows it has become part of the series’ brand as well.

“With all the wine consumed during an episode of ‘Cougar Town,’ we knew we had to do something with the wine corks,” said Tricia Melton, SVP of entertainment marketing and branding for TBS, TNT and Turner Classic Movies. To that end, TBS called on the services of Scott Gundersen, an illustrator/artist whose penchant for creating portraits from recycled wine corks pairs with the promo efforts of “Cougar Town” like cheese with, well, you know.

For the past six days, Gundersen has been turning 62,000 recycled corks into a merlot-velous, billboard-sized mosaic advertising the season 5 premiere of “Cougar Town” on January 7. Using the corks’ varying degrees of wine stainage as the piece’s shading device, Gundersen’s mosaic has come to life in the middle of Los Angeles’ festive outdoor plaza, The Grove, where it has been seen by thousands of holiday shoppers strolling through daily. The project completed on Wednesday with a grand unveiling and a tasty promotional tie-in with the nearby Gordon Ramsey restaurant Fat Cow in which passers-by who snapped photos of the mosaic with the hashtag #siphappens could then show their shared online photo to the eatery’s staff in exchange for a “cougar sized” glass of wine.

For Los Angeles residents, the mosaic will be on display through Christmas Eve.

Brief take: An arty outdoor riff on “Cougar Town’s” most popular beverage shows that wine has become an inextricable part of the show’s brand, and that TBS knows how to leverage it.

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