"Wine is sunlight, held together by water." – Galileo Galilei

I myself am not a wine connoisseur. I, like most British people, look at them with a slight sense of annoyance and confusion. When most people watch a wine connoisseur on the telly they tend to think to themselves: "I don't care if it has an oak-like finish or not, just tell me if it tastes nice!"

However, they must have some appeal, as the manga The Drops of God testifies. This award-winning manga, written by Tadashi Agi and drawn by Shu Okimoto, has been influential on wine sales and imports into Japan, and elsewhere in the Far East. Also, it is accessible to a wine novice as the creators explain jargon, wine types, people and places in the wine industry, and describe techniques and terms in a clear, concise manner.

For those who have yet to read Volume 1 (the English editions are actually combinations of two Japanese volumes printed together in one book) The Drops of God is about Kanzaki Shizuku, the son of a world renowned wine critic whom he came to dislike and distance himself from, taking a job at a beer company. Upon his father's death Shizuku learns that the contents of his father's will, including his fortune in wine, are to be the subject of a battle between himself and a young wine critic, Toomine Issei. The contents of the will go to whoever can correctly identify 13 particular wines, known as "The 12 Apostles" and the final "Drops of God", from the late father’s description.

The story has been slow so far. The end of Volume 1 sees Shizuku going into a head-to-head with "faux-Italian" Chosuke Honma in which Shizuku tries to prove that French wines can be superior to Italian ones, while at the same time he helps a struggling restaurant owner who got a scathing review from Issei.

Volume 2 also started slowly, with Shizuku helping the restaurateur by trying to achieve a suitable "mariage" (that is the correct spelling) between his wines and his meals. It does not really get going until a few chapters in, when we get to one of the many "dream sequences" induced when Shizuku samples a particularly fine glass. These sequences allow the creators to go wild in terms of their locations, landscapes and situations. One glass leads to a tropical island, another to a Paris flea market, a third to a masquerade ball. The art in these sequences is delightful. There are also some pleasantly pleasing pencil sketch art (see p. 97.)

There is also some enjoyable dialogue. I wholeheartedly approve of Shizuku’s comment: "It's been sinking into me lately that with wine, you just gotta drink it. So let's start chugging down what we can find." (p. 81) That speaks to the typical British drinker – the kind that thinks: "Stop talking, let's just binge! Where's the nearest Wetherspoon?" There is also some dark humour, as is displayed when the father of two twin wine sellers reveals the truth about his cancer. (p. 242-243)

The plot is still however very slow. By the end of Volume 2 (Volume 4 in Japanese) still none of the 12 Apostles have been revealed, but the clues to the first of them have been and the advertising in the book says that the first Apostle will be revealed in the next English volume, due to come out in March. Hopefully it will be an exciting read (and the Apostle wine will be cheap enough for me to find and buy.)