Review | Taut Apple TV+ drama Drops of God uncorks wine snobbery as two experts go nose to nose in a tasting competition in Japan
- French-Japanese production Drops of God follows a wine-tasting competition in Japan and puts the boot into the pomposity that surrounds winemaking
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A heady whiff of smug satisfaction surely accompanies the enjoyment of Drops of God (Apple TV+) – at least that of anyone who has ever felt short-changed having bought expensive French wine.
Largely through radical, abrasive French oenologist Alexandre Léger (Stanley Weber), the series puts the boot into the pretence and pomposity that surrounds winemaking and tasting. But being a French-Japanese co-production, its glare is steered by Léger’s disgust at the fact that consumers pay for renowned, usually French, labels regardless of a wine’s quality.
As he tells a disapproving French guest at a French embassy bash in Tokyo: “The problem is snobbery in France.” Today, he’d be called an industry disrupter.
That Léger should be in Japan at all, where he teaches a university oenology class, is thanks to his blunt refusal to join the French wine establishment gravy train. But thus far, this is just part of the flashback appetiser to an ingeniously told, surprisingly taut tale of what will happen to Léger’s multimillion-dollar, Japanese-based wine estate – now that he is dead.
Manipulative even from beyond the grave, Léger, in a message to estranged daughter Camille (Fleur Geffrier), admits to having seemed like a “weirdo” father, “sadistic and toxic”. This characterisation is borne out by his setting a test for Camille, with his entire legacy at stake.