French discover new pleasure: Adult comics about wine
PARIS (AFP) — It is no secret that the French love wine. But they are also the world’s second biggest consumers of graphic novels after the Japanese.
Now, a new wave of literature is putting the two passions together – comics for adults about wine.
The genre that was completely unheard of a little over a decade ago has jostled itself on to the bookshelves, with a festival dedicated to it booming among the vineyards near Bordeaux.
BD & Vin – meaning graphic novels and wine – is the brainchild of winemaker Romain Sou, whose Chateau Lacouture domain is just across the Gironde estuary from the fabled Chateau Margaux.
“I love graphic novels and I love wine and so do most of my friends,” he said. “But 10 years ago, when we started, it wasn’t at all obvious that there would be a thirst for BDs (graphic novels) about wine,” he added.
Ironically, it was the phenomenal success of the Japanese manga series “Drops of God” which turned the French onto the potential of comics about wine.
The story of a Japanese beer company employee, who must correctly identify 13 wines from his father’s collection to inherit his wealth, made several obscure French winemakers stars overnight in Asia.
It also sparked runs on some wines featured in the series, including the Bordeaux Chateau Mont-Perat, with one Taiwanese importer selling 50 cases in two days.
A line of more down-to-earth graphic novels, however, has struck a still deeper chord in France.
“Les Ignorants,” “A Great Forgotten Burgundy” and “Mimi, Fifi & Glouglou” – which have already been translated into English – have caught the mood of a country that looks much harder at what it drinks.
Organic winemaker Emmanuel Guillot also sets out in search of the ultimate oenological high in his warm-hearted hit series, “A Great Forgotten Burgundy” (“Un Grand Bourgogne Oublie”), which is as much about educating as entertaining its readers.
For Guillot, whose characters are often modeled on his friends, family and fellow winemakers, the success of the genre is all about wine-lovers’ thirst for a deeper relationship with what they are drinking.
“When you drink a bottle of wine, you travel. It is not just alcohol; you are drinking the story,” he told