The Drops of God: Volume 2

by Tadashi Agi (story) and Shu Okimoto (art), 410 pages

Shizuku Kanzaki stumbles upon a family-run French restaurant that's in danger of closing down from loss of business following a scathing review a year earlier from none other than Shizuku's bitter rival, Issei Tomine, with whom he's supposed to compete for his inheritance.  Shizuku vows to help the owner get a glowing review when his former critic returns for a second opinion and sets out to figure out what went wrong the first time.  Meanwhile, Shizuku and his friend Miyabi Shinohara are also trying to put together a trio of inexpensive French wines to beat out his outspoken co-worker, who's a militant supporter of Italian wines (and, for some reason, a hater of all things French), in a tasting at their offices--and the future of their new wine division could depend on the results.  And then, of course, there's the race for the inheritance, which the boys have been putting off...till now.

I may not retain all the information about names and vineyards and classes of wine that these characters are trying to teach each other, but little bits (like the concepts of mariage and terroir) are starting to sink in and make me feel ever so slightly more knowledgeable than I was before.  (I wish I had a well-stocked wine cellar!)  I'm also enjoying the characters and the story that goes along with the lessons.  Funny, (melo-) dramatic, and enlightening, this series.  There's certainly a high incidence of coincidence and a definite cheeze factor, but I'm finding that's all part of the fun, too.  I'm excited now that Shizuku and Tomine have officially begun the search for the first of the Twelve Apostles.  They've got three weeks to track down a single wine from nothing but a flowery, metaphor-ridden description.  I'm sure they'll find it, but who'll get there first?  And what other life-lessons will they learn along the way?

The Drops of God: Volume 1

by Tadashi Agi (story) and Shu Okimoto (art), 424 pages

Ever since he was a child, Shizuku's famous wine-critic father Kanzaki drilled him in the ways of wine.  And in protest, the young man has never actually imbibed a drop of the stuff, going instead into sales (of beer, no less!).  But when Kanzaki unexpectedly dies, Shizuku finds that he's still not off the hook.  At the reading of the will, it is revealed that his father has left him with one final test.  If Shizuku wants to claim his inheritance (chiefly his father's huge, priceless wine collection), he must first find the thirteen unnamed wines described in great poetic detail in the will.  He also learns that his father formally adopted another young man shortly before his death.  A young man who happens to be a very ambitious and talented up-and-coming wine critic.  And a young man to whom Shizuku will lose everything if he doesn't beat him to the finish line.

Huh.  This is quite fun, actually.  If you like Oishinbo (a crazily-informative, long-running manga about Japanese food and beverage that also has a plot of sorts and leaves you hankering for real sushi or noodles or sake), you will enjoy this series.  It makes you want to visit the Big Brown Derby (that's the International Wine Center, for those of you with more class than I  *hee*) and stare at the pretty bottles, speculating about the romantic stories behind their tasty contents.  Shizuku's brain has been hard-wired for wine comprehension by his clever father, but he couldn't care less about the stuff (or the inheritance, though having to fight a stranger for it does hurt his pride a bit)...until he finally takes a sip of a truly good wine and learns its story.  Now he has to find them all--more for himself and his understanding of his father than for the material wealth in question.  And how will the search affect his cold-hearted competition?  I wonder if his daddy didn't do them both a favor by throwing them at each other's throats like that....  I look forward to more!  (And I wish I had an "in" with a sommelier who'd give me free samples...lucky Shizuku....  *sigh*)