Cartoon wine critic Shizuku Kanzaki boosts Japanese sales
The comic character Kami no Shizuku, who has provoked a glut of wine-buying in Japan
Entire 20,000-bottle shipments of burgundy sell out within hours in Tokyo if he so much as looks at a glass, South Korea's biggest film star is lined-up to play him in a TV drama and he has converted thousands of Asian women into the most discerning oenophiles.
In the rarefied world of superstar sommeliers, there may be none greater than Shizuku Kanzaki. The only snag is that he is a cartoon.
Despite his two-dimensional limitations, the hero of Kami no Shizuku (The drops of the gods) has emerged as an extraordinarily potent mover of Asian wine markets — far more so, say some in the industry, than flesh-and-blood wine critics.
The sales records of Japan's largest wine merchants have been smashed because, in a single frame of comic, the hero has uttered a dreamy sigh over a 2006 New Zealand Riesling or closed his eyes in appreciation of a Saint-Aubin Premier Cru.
Enoteca, one of Japan's top-end importers, admitted that the comic character has even begun to influence its stock ordering decisions.
Shizuku's adventures are read by about 500,000 Japanese each week and book collections of the comics have sold millions of copies. Wines that feature in his weekly manga activities regularly become overnight hits, particularly for Japan's frenetic online wine markets.
In Taiwan a single reference to a relatively obscure French terroir shifted dozens of cases of the stuff within a few days.
He has sent the prices of some vintages soaring and, in some cases, tripled sales of particular wines. Some wine importers in Japan say they have never encountered such a powerful single influence on their business.
Shizuku's quest for the world's 12 greatest wines has served to push Japanese wine drinkers towards a more sophisticated, complex experience. Sommelier courses for Japanese women are fully booked.
Yukie Bunya, the chief wine buyer for All Nippon Airways, told The Times that she has had to recraft the in-flight wine lists to accommodate a new generation of wine snobs.
In South Korea, meanwhile, translations of his adventures are believed to have triggered a wine boom, making it a serious competitor for beer and local rice-based spirits.
For many off-licence stores in Seoul, Kami no Shizuku has dramatically altered their business. Where once wine represented less than a third of sales, in some shops it now accounts for 70 or 80 per cent. The boom is expected to go even farther now that Bae Yong Joon — a South Korean heartthrob — is said to be considering portraying Shizuku in a film.
The comic is the creation of a brother and sister team in Japan, who use the pseudonym Tadashi Agi. It follows the continuing quest of Shizuku to track down the “Twelve Apostles” — a collection of wines described by our hero's father in his will.
Each week various wines are tasted and their backgrounds woven into the plot. The prize at the end of Shizuku's quest is the key to his father's wine cellar, which, because the man was a great wine critic, is a truly magnificent treasure trove.
His search is not without rivalry, however. Shizuku's journey into viticulture and oenophilia is dogged by Toomine Itsusei, himself a celebrated, and entirely fictional, wine critic who also has his heart set on getting hold of that cellar.