The Drops of God-Volume One. Tadashi Agi (Author) Shu Okimoto (Artist)
If you need to learn something forever, turn to a good manga. As I′ve pointed out before, the combination of love for good food and drink, the art displayed and the consistency of the information, make manga a great choice to broach any subject that is gourmet related.
As you may imagine, sommelier work is hard work: they have to memorize vintages, labels, terroirs and years. It relies heavily on scent, and the mark of a good sommelier is their ability to transmit what makes a good wine from their expertise to the buyer. I loved last year′s movie Uncorked because of it, it gave you a true account of the passion that must drive the training, it is a calling.
Now, this manga is a classic. It has had such a great reception that all the wines mentioned in it have sold well. The international wine market relies heavily on word of mouth, so to speak, and they have profited accordingly from the chase of perfection that is behind The Drops of God.
What are The Drops of God?
They are thirteen mysterious wines that the renowned wine critic Kanzaki Yutaka has left as riddle to his only son: Kanzaki Skizuku. If he is unable to guess which wines they are, the golden wine collection that is his right inheritance will go instead to a stellar young wine critic known as Toomine Issei.
Why are these wines described as the “Twelve Apostles” and the thirteenth known as the “Drops of God”?
Because they′re heavenly. Because they′re a posthumous letter of love about wine from this wine critic to his son, because they may explain an obsession, and because they hide a memory, unique to both of them.
But, wait, there′s more!
Kanzaki Shizuku went to work at a Japanese beverage company, selling beer. He associated all the smells he had to correctly identify for his father, (such as belts and lead pencils), as simply torture. He has never even drunk wine because of that, but his nose is that of a fine trained sommelier. Also, there′s a girl…
I come from wine country, a small province at the southern frontier of Bolivia, next to Argentina. I′m currently recovering from Covid and have developed anosmia, which the inability to smell anything, and gosh, do I hope to recover from it.
Wine is entirely made up of memories, and your ability to correctly identify them can develop and mature over time. You know, Bolivia has the greatest coffee, chocolate and wine in the world, even God himself told Lucifer that in the 4th season of the series. My go to wine is Soul of Tannat, (Alma de Tannat) a Rosé made with one of the best grapes of our high altitude regions. I cannot wait to smell and taste it again.
The forty-four volume manga series The Drops of God are now available digitally in English for the first time from Kodansha USA & comiXology Originals.
′The Drops of God-Volume One′ is on sale since October 14, 2019.
All 44 volumes are available since June 2021.
Page Count: 211 Pages
Digital Release Date: October 14, 2019
Age Rating: 15+ Only
Sold by: comiXology
Published by: Vertical.
Featured image by Stan Sakai, all images belong to Kodansha
.
