By Neil ArmstrongFeatures correspondent

The "unusual and stylish" drama, set in Tokyo and Provence, centres on fine vintages and family intrigue, writes Neil Armstrong.

Drops of God is an unusual, stylish, hugely entertaining drama but rarely has watching television been such thirsty work. You'll want a bottle of something special when you settle down to this show based on a hit manga series that sparked a wine boom in Japan and South Korea.

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Camille Léger (Fleur Geffrier) is at a birthday party in a bar in Paris when she gets a call from her estranged father Alexandre, a world-famous wine expert and creator of the influential reference work, the Léger Wine Guide. Alexandre lives in Tokyo, and Camille hasn't seen him since her parents separated when she was nine, and hasn't spoken to him since she graduated high school 11 years ago when he called her, said "Good job" and hung up. Now he's dying and he wants her to go to him.

In fact, he dies as Camille is en route on the private plane he has sent. At the reading of the will, she is surprised to find a solemn, smartly dressed, young Japanese man present. It transpires that her father has left behind an extraordinary wine cellar of 87,000 bottles. In terms of quality and rarity, it's the greatest private wine collection in the world, and worth an estimated Y167bn or $148m. It is, according to Léger, "the fruit of a lifetime's work", and he wanted it to go to someone who can appreciate its full value. He has set up a series of tests involving identifying wines to determine who will inherit it. Camille must compete with the young man – a brilliant young oenologist called Issei Tomine (Tomohisa Yamashita), who was her father's protégé and his "spiritual son".

The first test is introduced immediately. The pair are invited to taste a red wine and then they have one month to identify it. Camille watches Tomine hold the glass up against a white cloth, smell it, swirl it around the glass and smell it again before tasting it. He clearly knows what he's doing.

He has Camille at a disadvantage because she doesn't drink alcohol. In an earlier scene, we've seen her have a violent physical reaction to booze. Nevertheless, she takes the smallest sip of wine and… the same thing happens again. She's disorientated and gets a heavy nose bleed. She storms out. She doesn't care about the wine, or the money.

But she does, of course. When she's calmed down she is shown her father's cellar and sees the quirky notes he wrote to describe various wines: "Led Zeppelin live 79", "chicken in mint", "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly". And then a wine labelled "To drink with Camille when she turns 18".

Why this never happened, we don't yet know but, after watching a personal recorded message from her father, Camille decides she will take part in the contest and will spend the next month taking a crash course in oenology on a winemaking estate in Provence owned by a friend of her father. She used to spend her summers there as a child, having her unusually sensitive palate and sense of smell trained by her dad.

The drama in this eight-part Franco-Japanese co-production arises from the tests that Camille and Issei have to prepare for and take, and also from the gradual revelation of shocking family secrets that neither of them suspected.

The show, written by Quoc Dang Tran, a Vietnamese-French writer who has worked on such French smash hits as Call My Agent! and The Bureau, manages to imbue the wine-tasting scenes with the tension of a thriller. There's a particularly fun sequence shot like a caper movie in which Camille has to pose as a restaurant sommelier in order to get just a sniff of a particularly rare wine that a wealthy diner has bought.

But the family drama is just as gripping as we learn, for example, through flashbacks why Camille has such an aversion to alcohol, and why Issei's mother seems so cold and distant.

The depiction of the two principal characters almost leans into national stereotypes. Redheaded Camille is passionate, impulsive, sweary. Issei is reserved, formal and analytical. But as the series progresses, we discover they have much in common.

The two actors playing them are not hugely well known beyond their native France and Japan but with Drops of God have done their international job prospects no harm at all. Geffrier, who looks as though she's stepped out of a Pre-Raphaelite painting, is a magnetic lead. She has dialogue in three languages – French, English and Japanese – and pulls it off with elan. Yamashita, already idolised in Japan, where he is known as a singer, dancer and presenter as well as an actor, is a charismatic presence. They both have cheekbones sharp enough to peel a grape with.

Drops of God looks beautiful too. Tokyo is presented in steely blues and greys. Provence is bathed in golden sunshine, except for the occasional dramatic storm. Provençal tourism chiefs don't need any help selling their region but will surely be rubbing their hands in glee at this.

So will winemakers. Listening to the characters discuss wine and the wine-making process with such enthusiasm, and hearing them describe incredible wines so vividly, may well make you want to drink them. The show has been distilled from a bestselling 44-volume Japanese manga series of the same name which began in 2004, created by a brother-and-sister team, Shin and Yuko Kibayashi. The series is famous for its impact on the East Asian wine market, significantly boosting the sale of wines mentioned in the story. 

It more than doubled wine sales in Japan in the first year it was published. In July 2009, the British wine magazine Decanter placed the Kibayashis at Number 50 on its list of the wine world's most influential people, remarking that Drops of God "is arguably the most influential wine publication for the past 20 years". One French winemaker withdrew a wine of his from the market after it was mentioned in order to prevent its price from rocketing. The wines in the TV series, which has changed several aspects of the manga's story, are a mixture of real and fictional but if you happen to have a few cases of, say, Château Cheval Blanc 2000 lying around in your cellar, you may want to hang on to them for a while.

One of the many charms of the show is that even if, like me, your previous knowledge of wine essentially amounts to being able to visually distinguish between red and white, you feel as if you are being infused with expertise as you watch. I finished the series regretting the life choices that mean I'm not running a wine domaine in glorious southeastern France but consoling myself that should a head sommelier position become vacant at a Michelin-starred restaurant, I could have a reasonable shot at it.

★★★★☆

The first two episodes of Drops of God are on Apple TV + from April 21; new episodes are released weekly.

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