I love Top Gear; one of the funniest TV programs I have ever seen. Middle aged men who have not fully grown up, great chemistry, pratfalls, humor and great cars. But…
Sadly the formula does not work well with wine. I watched one of the presenters, James May, team up with Oz Clarke, one of the top wine presenters in the UK, and head off to France. Oz is one of the nice people in the wine world, and tried as hard as he could to coach May. In return, May behaved like a sulky schoolboy, even literally blowing a whistle every time Oz descended into winespeak. A couple of nice shots of the 2 Pichons, but otherwise little for the winelover, and much to turn them off, including the sight of Clarke and May wearing nothing but g strings getting into a “grape” bath at Smith haut Lafitte. For those who watched Mondivino, remember the sight of Jean-Charles Boisset showing off his little bits.
The worst part was that it appeared that all May was interested in finding a way of determining the best $8-15 supermarket plonk, while Oz was trying to show wine in its all glory. It was wasted on a man who really did not want to bother with the intricacies, and just wanted to drink. A tiresome show.
Agreed. One of the problems with food shows is that the producers always seem to be looking for some kind of formula. As a result, we end up with shows that are usually some type of lame contest. The fallback is a trip or travelogue. A travelogue type show could actually work but you’d need a charismatic person doing the travelling, which is where virtually all food shows fail, or you’d need a well-written program a la Discovery Channel following the polar bears, in which conveying information was paramount. I’d love to see a wine or food show like the latter and I think Oz could have pulled it off but that’s a big investment in time and money. Instead he got to be on another lame show. Too bad.
I’d never seen the show until now, and I jumped in with the first episode of the second season, where they’re in Cali. Not bad, I thought. It’s from '07, but I guess I’m still kinda struck when a show is about wine, and so enjoy the novelty.
I finally caught a few of these and can say the California episodes get much better and James quits being such a cranky snark and starts enjoying and exploring the wine more.
You also get to see them visit Alban and also get to see Justin from Saxum shoot a shotgun and stuff.
Some episodes are better than others. That first episode is the weakest of the ones I’ve seen. You can bet the producers are trying to appeal to as broad an audience as possible. It’s certainly not an all out wine geek show - more a show for James May fans.