The heady world of fine wine is often justly skewered as being hopelessly elitist and pretentious, where rare bottles sell for tens of thousands of dollars, their flavors and aromas described in florid, over-the-top language that readily lends itself to satire. (The sommelier in last year's delightful The Menu described a pinot noir as having "notes of longing and regret.")
That's the pop culture caricature, at least. If you yearn for something that brings this rarefied world firmly down to earth and celebrates wine's role in forging human bonds and shaping culture at large, I highly recommend Drops of God, a limited miniseries that debuted on Apple TV+ in April. It is based on the popular and influential manga of the same name. This is a series that sticks with you, its most memorable moments lingering in one's mind the way a good wine lingers on the palate.
(Some spoilers below but no major reveals.)
The Japanese manga series debuted in November 2004 in Japan's weekly Morning magazine, running through June 2014. It was followed by a sequel that added the element of food pairings, Marriage: The Drops of God Final Arc. Brother and sister creators Yuko and Shin Kibayashi became enthralled by the elite wine world after sampling a rare vintage and decided to create a manga series centered on the complexity and cultural impact of wine. Naturally, that meant conducting a lot of research, tasting wines from all over the world, spanning a broad range of price points.
Their inspiring ethos was a Japanese winemaker's motto regarding the essential elements of wine: heaven (vintage, or the weather/climate of a given geographical region), earth (terroir), and people, in the form of gifted winemakers. There are more than 15 million copies of the manga in circulation, and it has significantly boosted sales (and prices) of the specific wines mentioned in Japan. In fact, one winemaker stopped selling his 2003 vintage of Chateau le Puy after it was name-checked in the manga to discourage wealthy speculators and keep prices affordable.
Although the Kibayashi siblings have stated that wine is the main character, the manga storyline centers on two young men: Shizuku Kanzaki and Issei Tomine. Shizuku works for a beer manufacturing company. He's estranged from his father, a world-renowned wine critic named Yutaka Kanzaki, who taught his son various aspects of oenology until Shizuku rebelled as a teenager. While his expert knowledge is limited and he has never actually drunk wine (until the start of the series), Shizuku possesses a rare sense of taste and smell, enabling him to discern subtle notes in any given bottle and describe them with a certain poetic flair. Issei is the adopted son of Yutaka, himself a highly respected wine critic, who has been studying wine for much of his life and brings a more cerebral, methodical—indeed almost obsessive—approach to oenology.