Ovation's 'The Wine Show' an entertaining guide to all thins grape

If you’re an oenophile and you haven’t already found it, “The Wine Show” may be worth an hour of your time.

Airing Wednesdays on Ovation, the lifestyle/ documentary series takes viewers on an entertaining and informative walk-through of all things related to wine – from locations and history to gadgets and the wines themselves – guided by the affable hosts, actors Matthew Rhys (“The Americans,” “Brothers and Sisters”) and Matthew Goode (“The Crown,” “Downton Abbey”), as well as resident wine experts Joe Fattorini and Amelia Singer.

Along the way, they visit worldwide locations such as Chile, to see how the winemaking industry has fared since a devastating 2010 earthquake; Shanghai, to check out its emerging wine culture; the Burgundy region of France, for a wine auction; and the Mornington Peninsula of Australia, home to a plethora of vineyards and wineries.

In this week’s episode, Rhys and Goode head to Rome to sample Roman wine recipes.

“In Rome, we centered on history and one of those elements being ancient Roman wine,” Rhys explains, “and what they used to do or how they drank it, how they preserved it, what accompanied it, which you’d need a cast-iron stomach to kind of live and quaff in ancient Roman times. It was a tough test.”

“Tough” is a relative term in a series such as this, where there is lots of sipping of great wine in breathtaking locations. But that isn’t all this is about. There is also plenty of useful information on wine gadgets, winemaking and other minutia to be had and, as one would expect, discussion of the wines themselves.

And there is also the light-hearted touch of the hosts, Rhys and Goode, two long-time friends whose rapport and mischievous sense of humor are apparent as they kid with each other, Fattorini and Singer, and make funny asides to the camera. Like the viewer, both actors are on a journey of discovery about wine. As Rhys says, “We enjoy vast quantities of it but know nothing about it.”

“This is fun for us,” Rhys adds with a laugh. “It’s a tough one to sell to the family when you’re saying I’m going to go to a country for a month and drink wine . ... It’s never a great conversation when you’re calling home saying I’ve been drinking wine all day in an Italian villa.”