Wine Pairing: Domaine des Hâtes Chablis, 2022 – France
This business about Shizuku quitting the Apostles contest was resolved pretty quickly here, as I rather thought it might be. It never made sense thematically. But of course, that removes one logical explanation about what the plan for this adaptation is. We only have a few episodes to go and we’re barely into the 8th Apostle, never mind the actual “Drops of God” – lots of name-drops there this week – that towers above them (I’m betting on Château d’Yquem there, incidentally). Maybe I’m wrong to assume there is some sort of plan there, but it’s hard to imagine an adaptation of a long-finished manga like this would just stop in the middle.
The key takeaway from this development is this: each brother thinks the competition was rigged in favor of the other. Or at least, is “about” the other. That’s testament to Yutaka’s manipulative genius, I suppose, that he could make each of his sons believe that. “To say with wine what he couldn’t with words”, as Robert puts it. Shizuku’s pretext for quitting is that the competition is designed to elevate Issei to the point where he can truly succeed his father, and now that he loves wine Shizuku doesn’t want to stand in the way. Weak, but superficially plausible. The truth is obvious – he’s feeling insecure and inadequate and is tired of being reminded of his own deficiencies compared to Issei.
Issei’s take is more profound – that the whole “incomplete yet complete” Sagrada Familia motif was about Shizuku himself. Of the two theories I suspect Issei’s is closer to the truth, but only a little – the point of all this, I’m 100% convinced, was to bring his sons together as brothers in death as Yutaka could never do in life. The fact is, for their childhoods it was Shizuku who Yutaka chose to be with, though what that says is hard to pin down. Of course he also chose to adopt Issei as an adult and in effect make him his de facto heir.
Winning by default doesn’t sit well with Issei. Maybe he’s feeling the pangs of brotherhood, maybe enjoying the competition, but if nothing else he hates the idea that he’s being deprived of the chance to prove his superiority in combat. So he goes on TV and shares the description of the 8th Apostle with the world, knowing his brother won’t be able to resist that (it has unintended consequences later in the episode of course). As for the apostle itself it takes us right back to the series’ comfort zone, its holiest of holies, Bordeaux. The Médoc AOC specifically, home of the five Premier Grand Cru Classé chateaux – and of the Médoc Marathon.
Yutaka’s description focuses on running, so the Médoc is a fitting locale. The marathon is non-traditional to say the least – wine tasting, oysters, steak, music, costumes. It’s a celebration of Bordeaux life and the wine trade. Shizuku has considerable experience of this part of the world. traveling with his father. His super sniffer is good enough to identify the chateaux they stopped at by cork (though a photo mag helps) and it looks to have been a carbon copy of the marathon route. Next steps are obvious at this point.
Those unintended consequences reveal themselves at the airport, when a bunch of wine thugs (ROFL) mistake Shizuku for Issei (really?) at the airport and try to kidnap him. Issei arrives too at that very moment (FNAB) and the two of them wind up spirited away by Karen, a young woman who turns on the kidnappers. The caper was to use Issei to rubber-stamp counterfeit wines (that is a huge business, in fact) but Karen says she wants the boys to help “save her family”. This is all a bit contrived, but getting Issei and Shizuku together during a hunt was something the series has definitely been building up to, so I’m keen to see where this takes us.
