First, a confession: two of my favourite things are wine and comics. That may not make me a billionaire playboy, but it certainly keeps me entertained. Sadly, they are interests which seldom coincide.
As you can well imagine, my interest was piqued when I heard recently that the renowned French comic writer Eric Corbeyran is currently producing a series of graphic novels based in the world of wine entitled ‘Médoc’. The Bordeaux resident’s best-selling titles include Le Chant des Stryges, Atavisme and Epreuve and this new work will co-authored by Sébastien Portet, also known as Espé. Volume one is reported to be complete and will be released in 2011, with an expected run of three volumes. The story is rumoured to be a family saga, focussing on a young American woman whose inheritance of Château Chêne Courbe after her father’s death, proves more difficult than she first imagined as the problems of winemaking are exacerbated by a slew of long-lasting feuds.
Corbeyran is not the first to mix wine and comics, however. The manga series ‘Kami No Shizuka’ (The Drops of God) has been a popular line of comic books since 2004. The story focuses on two brothers searching to discover the identity and location of 12 legendary wines recommended by their father which they call the ‘Twelve Apostles’. The prize in the hunt is their late father’s 18 million dollar wine cellar and the competition is fierce. The series specialises in lyrical and off-beat descriptions of real wines with accompanying illustrations. It is these idiosyncratic tasting notes which have been credited with driving interest in fine wines all across Asia.
The Japanese importer Enoteca has admitted that it has begun to consider the recommendations of characters in Drops of God when making orders from its suppliers. This isn’t unique to Japan, however, and fine wine sales in South Korea have seen a marked increase which can be directly linked to the popularity of the series. Likewise, wine magazine ‘Decanter’ called Drops of God “arguably the most influential wine publication for the past 20 years”.
Whether Corbeyran’s series will have the same impact as The Drops of God remains to be seen, although I’m certainly looking forward to finding out myself.
