In 2009, Decanter magazine published its famous “The Power List” of the most influential people in the wine world, placing it at number 50, behind Robert Parker, Jancis Robinson, Miguel Torres and Álvaro Palacios – to name just a few names two unknown characters: Tadashi Agi and Shu Okimoto. “The brothers,” the magazine then wrote, “are behind the famous Japanese wine manga under the pseudonym Tadashi Agi.” His series is perhaps the most influential wine publication of the last 20 years.”
The manga Decanter was talking about is The Drops of God, published by Kodansha, along with Amazon's digital comics platform ComiXology. The first edition was published in 2005. The success was as unexpected as what would happen years later: a collection of 44 books, translations into five different languages, more than 300 million readers (between Japan, South Korea and Taiwan only), the New York Times included her on its list to his 2002 bestsellers, a wine club, a tasting game and a television series.
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According to Bloomberg in October 2019, the idea for the manga came about when the brothers first visited the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti winery (French Burgundy) and tasted a Romanee Conti, the Echezeaux 1985 – around 6,000 euros a bottle – and so on His desire arose to write a story in which wine is the main protagonist, the leitmotif in which the feelings and lives of its protagonists move.
The series, directed by Oded Ruskin (“The Baker and the Beauty” or “Absentia”), is available on Apple TV+ as an adaptation of the comic book by screenwriter Quoc Dang Tran (“Unknown Parallels” or “Intrusion”). The plot of the series is the same as that of the manga: the death of one of the most important gurus of the wine world, Alexandre Léger (in the series), an inheritance worth millions ($148 million) and two heirs, Camille Léger (daughter of the guru) and Issei Tomine (the most talented student in his wine courses). You, French; the Japanese. In the last days before his death, Alexandre recorded his last wish: his legacy of wines and his possessions will go to one of his two candidates, provided they successfully pass a series of tests: one of blind tasting, another of evocation, another pairing, another of coupage, another of harmonies…
Fleur Geffrier and Tomohisa Yamashita, the rivals of The Drops of God.
The story takes place between the beautiful vineyards of Burgundy in France, Paris, Tokyo and the Trento wine region in Italy. The script is superbly written, with undertones of mystery, rivalry, desire, worry, overcoming and a good dose of resentment, forgiveness and love. All this, marinated with 14 of the best wines in the world (the vast majority French or Italian, but, to name just a few Spanish ones, at some point a 1999 Vega Sicilia Único is uncorked and in the comic there is even a mention of a Ferrer Bobet Selecció. Special 2008 – from Priorat –).
The result is eight chapters that should be enjoyed with the same composure with which one uncorks a wine worth more than 500 euros, i.e. This is what the series leads us to: to understand that wine is much more than just wine, it is a living being, a thoughtful concept that is educated and pampered to be drunk in this liturgy of excellence. Put this way, uncorking these wines might make us afraid to face them and unwilling to engage with the intellectuality contained within a bottle. However, the story moves between the boundaries of excellence, luxury and everyday life, awakening in the viewer the desire to accompany the protagonists on their quest, to guess the nuances contained in the glass and to explore, using only the sense of smell, what lies behind the wine : its terroir, the year it was grown, the grapes from which it was made…
“I don’t know how to put it,” says Camille Léger at a certain point in the series. This wine has it all. At first you smell the ink, the spices, the leather, the wood, but then you catch a glimpse of what it will be like in 20 years. It's like your life is summed up in a second. This wine was made with love and honesty. “It’s family.”
Fleur Geffrier, in the seventh episode of “The Drops of God.”
This is not the first time that wine and its surroundings have served as inspiration for screenwriters and filmmakers. To give a few references, let's remember The Sommelier (2020) by Prentice Penny: the boy who wanted to become a sommelier in the face of family rejection and who expects him to dedicate himself to the family business (just like in The Drops of). God). Or how can we forget Sideways (2004) by Alexander Payne? This miracle sparked a desire to travel to the lands of Napa Valley in search of wine adventures and sparked interest and consumption of Pinot Noir. In the case of The Drops of God, the wines mentioned in the manga sold out at breakneck speed in wineries, one of the cases being the French red wine Château Mont Pérat (Bordeaux), 50 cases of which were sold in just two days. What will happen to the series? Everything indicates that the company will continue to gain new followers in the world of wine.
The colorimetry of the production (wine-like tones), the choice of shots: the close-ups and the overhead shots show us a seductive and different look; The narrative rhythm of the images traces the passage of time with the same elegance with which the entire story unfolds. Everything seems designed to understand the spiritual side of wine. In addition to this dramatic braid that surrounds the characters, eight chapters offer a guide to tasting, to training the muscle that represents the sense of smell or the palate, in short, how to understand that wine is not alcohol but life: “I pull an 't know' explains in words, the wine is smelled, tasted, experienced. Forget your brain for a while and let your senses do the talking. It is above all a question of sensitivity and opening the mind,” says the protagonist Alexandre Léger in his oenology course at the University of Tokyo. In short, one could say that “The Drops of God” breaks the fourth wall and introduces the viewer, transforming him into another character who, together with the protagonists, searches for answers to each test.
The first season ends with us understanding the reason for the name “The Drops of God”, which a priori does not seem to be accurate at all. Will there be a second part? Who knows? Everything seems well concluded and without the possibility of continuity, but if we trust the complexity of the wine, perhaps the screenwriters will discover a new plot in it.
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