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While the rest of the free world has been reveling in the runaway hit Heated Rivalry, the second season of the Apple TV+ wine drama Drops of God quietly landed on Jan. 21.
Based on a manga of the same name, the first season of Drops of God was released in 2023. I never got around to watching it at the time, and was only reminded of its existence when I saw that season two had just been released.
Well, Dish readers, I’m halfway through the eight-episode first season and have nothing but praise for Drops of God.
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The premise of the first season: Camille Léger (played by Fleur Geffrier) is living in Paris when she gets a call from her estranged, dying father Alexandre (Stanley Weber), an influential wine writer/authority living in Tokyo. After pleading for her to come see him, Camille makes the trek but arrives too late. At the reading of Alexandre’s will, also attended by her father’s oenological protegé Issei (Tomohisa Yamashita), it’s revealed that dad’s (fabulous) house in Tokyo and his 87,000-bottle wine collection will be awarded to whichever of the two wins a series of wine-related tests.
As a child, Alexandre had trained Camille’s palate and sense of smell/taste using a series of blind tastings and such, but after an incident during one of the sessions he fled from France to Japan and never returned. Camille, meanwhile, was traumatized by the whole situation, and doesn’t drink alcohol due to the physical reactions it brings on (nosebleeds, passing out, etc.) which are largely linked to her childhood and her experiences with her father.
Can Camille get past her affliction, deal with past trauma and train her palate, Rocky-style, to go toe to viticultural toe against Issei in the series of wine tests? Well, to find out you’ll have to watch Drops of God.
The show, which is in English, French and Japanese, is visually stunning, with most of the scenes set either in French wine country or in Tokyo. Both Léger and Yamashita offer solid performances, with a supporting cast that pulls their weight as well.
As was the case with Alexander Payne’s 2004 film Sideways, I was a bit worried about how well the wine stuff would be done, and how well it would integrate into the storyline. Generally speaking, Drops of God gets it mostly right without ever getting bogged down in detail. Not every little detail about wine is perfect, but sacrificing pinpoint accuracy in the name of entertainment is fine by me.
The reception for Drops of God has been almost universally positive from TV critics, and generally speaking those in the wine world have also given it high praise as well. You can add this wine guy to those giving the show a purple-stained thumbs up.
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