Under the Vines

TVNZ 1, starts 8pm Wednesday

All across the country, boringly rational types are hissing at the grape-eyed dreamers in their lives: “But we’re not vintners for god’s sake!” It’s the sound of the summer, and it’s the obvious pull quote from Under the Vines, TVNZ’s new co-production with Acorn TV, the international streaming platform for people who only want to watch the Best of British.

The series is filmed in Central Otago, but more precisely set in the same quirky and uncomplicated version of rural New Zealand as more-popular-overseas-than-they-are-here local productions (The Brokenwood Mysteries, that rom-com where an American ex-pat inherits a knitting shop). Into this idyllic world steps Sydney socialite Daisy (Rebecca Gibney) and disbarred London lawyer Louis (Charles Edwards), both believing they are the sole heirs of a fancy vineyard.

After literally bumping into each other at Queenstown Airport baggage claim, the pair soon learn they have been misled by the inept local lawyer (Cohen Holloway). The late Stanley Oakley — his uncle, her stepfather

— has actually left his winery (plus an annoying French car and two taciturn Kiwi staff members) to both of them, with the instructions to “Do with it what you will”.

Oakley Winery, it turns out, is a total shambles — Old Stan clearly wasn’t a vintner either, nor did he know how to balance the books. But while Louis is hell-bent on selling up and getting back to London, Daisy decides to place an unreasonable amount of faith in the vague memory of someone once telling her she had been a vintner in a past life.

So, with a couple of aces up their sleeve in inherited staff members Tippy and Gus, the fish-out-of-water odd couple set about rehabilitating a failing vineyard and uncomplicating their own big-city rat-race lives.

Easy to watch and hard to dislike, it’s a comfortingly familiar country caper.