Sunday, April 1, 2012

On the Coffee Table: The First Apostle

Even though Apostle starts with A, this is not my A post for A-Z. Scroll down for that one or try the link here.

Also, even though this is the beginning of Holy Week, my post is not about those apostles. It's about...

Title: The Drops of God, Volume 3: The First Apostle
Writer: Tadashi Agi
Artist: Shu Okimoto


Image via THE MANGA CRITIC

If you are new to the Drops of God series, please read my previous post on Volumes 1 and 2 first.

The Apostles, in this case, refer to the twelve wines which Shizuku must identify from his father's will in order to win his inheritance. The first of these is revealed in Volume 3, though I'm certainly not going to spoil the surprise as you really should be reading the series yourself! For me, The Drops of God has become the standard, not just for how I judge manga but for comic books in general. The combination of words and images in telling the story is masterful. My Wife is as hooked as I. In fact, she insisted on reading it first and upon finishing, expressed great dismay that we'll have to wait until June for Volume 4.

We've planned a couple of wine-themed vacations over the years. We spent our honeymoon in Oregon's Willamette Valley, visiting every winery we could and made it back home with about nine bottles of Pinot noir. A few years later, still pre-parenthood, we made a trip to Alsace to sample Gewürztraminers and Rieslings.

Our wine adventures are far more modest these days, usually limited to what we bring home from the grocery store. My Wife generally makes the selections but yesterday at the store, she handed me the wine bag and sent me to choose. The Drops of God focuses mainly on French wines but, as I wrote in the previous post, we've found one gets a lot more bang for the buck from South American wines. Also, I prefer a spicy red and Cabernets and Malbecs from Chile and Argentina are quite satisfying. So, I grabbed what was on sale from that section, plus a Portuguese Vinho Verde. The books do renew my curiosity about the French bottles, though, so I might at least pay a visit to that section next time.

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