The Wine Show: Getting to know the grape with Matthews Goode and Rhys

The Binge
Jessica Zafra

THE WINE SHOW answers the age-old question: good looks or personality? Specifically, would you rather spend time with two very attractive men with average conversational skills, or two not as attractive men who can have a hilarious conversation about nothing? Even more specifically, would you rather drive through Italy in the company of Matthew Goode (Downton Abbey) and Matthew Rhys (The Americans), or with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon (The Trip to Italy, reviewed here some months back)? I guess that would depend on whether you want to document your trip on Instagram, or make a TV show.

The two Matthews star in The Wine Show, a series which seeks to demystify the hallowed grape. The world needs a show like this, because wine is surrounded with so much hoo-ha, one is almost afraid to look at a wine list lest she be judged by the waiter. (Actual conversation. “What is the house red?” “It’s the cheapest on the list.”) I like wine, the way it tastes, the pleasant abstraction that comes after a couple of glasses, the way it makes the company more scintillating (or at least seem to be). The rituals surrounding wine, not so much. That ostentatious sniffing, swirling, sipping, followed by pronouncements about bouquet, terroir, identifying what other crops are grown in the region — Please. There is that controversial study that concluded wine-tasting is junk science. I don’t think it’s a total sham, but don’t wax lyrical about the vintage too long. It’s almost as annoying as having to wait while your dining companions take pictures of the food.

Each episode begins with the Matthews explaining what the show is about, and right there we see what the problem is. The introduction is too long and they’re obviously reading the text, with that professional perkiness that suggests “contractual obligation.” Their voices are alike, so you don’t know which host is speaking. Worse, the copy sounds like it was written by an intern at a PR agency: it feels like they’re selling you something. That Home TV Shopping ambience is not an accident. It turns out that they are selling you stuff, lots of it.

The Wine Show is a conventional lifestyle magazine show with aspirations. After the intro, the hosts appear and make scripted chitchat telling the audience what they’re going to do in that episode. They bring in their mentor, Joe Fattorini and the height of wit is to call him “Obi-Wine Kenobi.” Having cast the lovely Matthews as hosts, the show then leaves them in a villa in Umbria while Fattorini and another presenter travel to the wine-producing countries of the world. Did you know that in the former Soviet republic of Moldova there is a wine cellar 60 miles long? Fattorini knows his wine, but we’d rather see the Matthews negotiating the Moldovan maze. Encounters between the West and Eastern Europe produce comedy gold, as we witnessed in Conan O’Brien’s special in Armenia.

Fattorini brings two bottles back to the villa, where he teaches the Matthews the finer points of tasting, and then directs the viewer to the ITV Web site where they can find out more about the products. In another segment, he critiques assorted wine-related gadgets including corkscrews, coolers, and a box of scents that can help you identify the component flavors of wine (Cost: 300 pounds sterling). And then he tells the viewers they can find out more on the show’s Twitter. For a show that’s supposed to decode the subtleties of wine, it’s heavy on the overstatement.

Finally, we see the Matthews in action. Their mentor sends them out on assignment, for instance: Find a wine that encapsulates the relationship between wine and the Catholic Church. (Duh, mompo.) Rhys and Goode are charming, but we see only their scripted interaction and brief hints of their personalities. So much potential wasted (True, I only saw the first six episodes). Goode could talk about what it was like to be the love interest of Alicia in The Good Wife and Lady Mary in Downton Abbey. Rhys could compare his hand-to-hand combat skills with that of Keri Russell, his co-star and partner on The Americans, and explain how his character could seduce every female on the show. But no, they have to stick with a script as thrilling cooking wine left in the kitchen for two weeks in its open cardboard box.

Having made their wine selection, they return to the villa where Fattorini sits by the fireplace with the stern judge look familiar from reality show singing contests. The Matthews walk to him in slow motion, which is odd because there is no car exploding behind them. The judge tastes the wines and pronounces one of them a winner. Yes, let’s force a competition angle into what is already an awkwardly crammed show. Because there’s another travel featurette to come, and a segment in which a famous chef names his favorite wine then prepares a meal to go with it.

The show is educational, I’ll give it that. I learned that super-Tuscans are not flying Florentines, the port of Jaffa pre-dates ancient Egypt, and the wine used at mass need not be red. The Wine Show is good background noise for when you’re working at home. For a more immersive experience, I recommend two other shows about men driving through wine country.

First is Alexander Payne’s movie Sideways, in which Paul Giammatti destroys merlot so brilliantly that merlot sales plunged in the real world. Then there is Coogan and Brydon’s The Trip to Italy, which isn’t specifically about wine but covers similar territory. The Matthews themselves bring up that other duo when they attempt feeble impressions of Sean Connery as James Bond. Oh no, you didn’t! Coogan and Brydon would not simply do the voice. They would, individually, reenact scenes from Bond movies, then compare the different Bonds, then cast other actors as Bond, and then use their Bond voices to sing “You Oughta Know” by Alanis Morrissette. Wine and character go together.

Contact the author at TVatemyday@gmail.com.

Read her work every week at BusinessWorld, every day at JessicaRulestheUniverse.com.