Wine Pairing: Château de la Ragotiere Muscadet Sevre Et Maine Sur Lie, 2015

A lovely, bracing and stony Loire Valley white to accompany my Drops of God this morning. Muscadet is truly one of wine’s unsung gems (which of course makes it a good value). It has legs, too – the sur lie process means it will continue to evolve in the bottle for a decade or more (as this bottle exhibits). Muscadet is little-known outside serious wine geeks – its aging potential all the more so. As much as I love the superstars of wine they’re generally beyond my means, and it’s the hidden corners of the wine world that provide the biggest opportunities.

As far as Kami no Shizuku is concerned, it’s pretty obvious that Kibayashi Shin’s greatest love is the great Pinots of Burgundy – they’ve been the center of the two main stories so far. If I’m honest it’s the same for me – but again, there’s the matter of means. The hunt for the first apostle continues apace, with Kaori at the heart of it. I find it quite disturbing when she says her husband “doesn’t let her” have wine – and clearly Shizuku does too. And there’s serious ethical red flags in a psychiatrist marrying his patient, much less an amnesiac one. But again – if their love is real, Kaori learning about her past should prove no threat to it.

Both Issei and Shizuku have narrowed the search down to Chambolle-Musigny, one of the most revered appellations in the Burgundy Côte de Nuits. But that’s a big target – and Chambolle-Musigny are expensive even by Burgundian standards. Mishima-san comes up with a good plan – a pairing menu for Chambolle-Musigny specifically. As a sommelier (though he isn’t, technically) Shizuku can taste every wine he pours to check for corkage. Eventually things get narrowed down to Les Amoureuses, the most prized parcel in the village.

A famous musician (though Mishima doesn’t tell Shizuku that) named Makabe-san – also a wine collector – comes in hoping to find the bottle he shared with his late wife many years ago. And he does – a 1999 Les Amoureuses from Christophe Roumier. The wine world has its superstars, its Jordans and Messi and Nicklauses. Men like Henri Jayer, already celebrated by The Drops of God. This series does love its legends, that’s for sure, and Roumier is one of them. Makabe’s ’99 is a sublime bottle – perfection. 1999 is considered one of the greatest Burgundy vintages of all time, a year graced by God.

But – it’s not right. Shizuku is flying by the seat of his pants on this whole exercise, but he has the genes for it. There are three basic elements that go into the nature of a wine – terroir (location), vintage (weather and other factors), and the producer. Here, Kami no Shizuku shrewdly takes this most European of passions and funnels it through a Japanese lens to find its answer. This is wabi-sabi plain and simple – beauty in imperfection. 2001 was a troubled vintage beset by one weather disaster after another. The wines went into oak marked with sharp and “underripe” tannins, and the initial expectation was that the vintage would be a near write-off.

But it wasn’t. Today many 2001’s are revered by collectors as underrated treasures. If 1999 was a vintage graced by the Heavens, ’01 was a vintage where a winemaker needed to show his greatness. And Roumier is one possessed of much greatness. In tasting the ’99 Shizuku and Issei both see perfection, but for Shizuku it’s closed off – a scene he can never enter. It’s the ’99 that matches his father’s description – and Mizusawa Kaori’s lost memories. It’s poetry vs. prose again – Shizuku understands his father better than Issei does. I don’t like the twist with Issei’s sister spying on Shizuku, and I don’t like seeing his channeled towards outright villain status. But I do like the moral of this arc. It melds wine and Japanese sensibility perfectly.

The degree to which Kami no Shizuku is known and yes, loved by wine aficionados all over the world was something I was mostly unaware of – it’s almost the same as Captain Tsubasa for football (soccer) people. It seems the Apostles are superstars in the wine world for being Apostles – if one goes to the Vivino page for the ’01 Roumier they’ll see “Truly one of the Twelve Apostles!” comments in the review section. With three live-action adaptations, two of which were not Japanese, it’s clear The Drops of God is an icon worldwide. And as someone who loves wine and animanga as much as I do, I’m quite abashed that it’s taken me this long to uncork it.