Customer Reviews
Very entertaining - By: T. Hansen, 11 May 2008 
A very funny & highly entertaining program of well known wine expert
OZ Clarke & Jamas May known form Top Gear, who together travels on a
wine adventure. James knows nothing about wine, but have chosen the car
for the adventure (of course an English jaguar) & is like a rebel
boarder school boy taught by the slightly older & more distinguished
Oz Clarke, who continuously tries to learn James about the different
wines & the impressions they make. It alll turns into a lot of very
entertaining & very funny situations, filled with humour, & there
is a lot to learn & view, both from the more experienced & newcomer
to wine tasting, on this fantastic wine adventure filled taste -and
sense impressions.
Unexpectedly witty and wonderful - By: C. Stewart, 26 Mar 2008 Not having seen the series, I was urged to buy this boxset by an insistent friend, & I confess to doubts - lots - not least because, with a couple of exceptions, I've never found a wine that didn't leave a horrible metalllic aftertaste & harsh acidity. I've always been convinced that old saw 'the more expensive the wine the better it is' was just a rip-off ploy by vintners!
On Top Gear James May's 'character' is vital, but subtle - he is the straight man, the foil for big shouty & little angry; to be the understated Everyman always almost but not quite in the limelight.
But I had real doubts as to how well that would translate in 'Big Wine Adventure'. True, May's affable irony & wry self-deprecating wit on TG were tempered by occasional flashes of a darker, inner bleakness, as he sometimes inadvertantly let slip a tendency towards melancholia(quote: "that moment of Black Dog despair") but away from Hamster & Jezzer, wouldn't it be bland & boring? I didn't reallly see how the combination could work - Oz Clarke, genuine theatre thespian dahlink & leading Brit wine critic alongside a beer-swilling, petrolhead pianist with depressive tendencies. I prepared for boredom or one of those celeb obviously-in-it-for-the money jaunts.
And I'm very, very sorry, because the DVDs are worth every penny. Both seasons were perfect examples of what documentary shows should be - funny without descending into juvenile puerility, & you learn useful stuff almost without noticing it. Season 1, as these two disparate men adjusted to each other brought forth several moments of hilarity: sharing a tent, the naked Spa pool, & my personal favourite was the Ozilator, a penny-whistle James blew whenever Oz went on too much in that sort of pretentious waffle usuallly only seen in an AA Gill food review column in The Times. Who hasn't craved such a thing to shut up some pontificating windbag at some point? Priceless!
But Oz wasn't obnoxious. Despite his occasional lapses into overblown oratory, he loves wine, he's interested in the history & the culture & his enthusiasm makes the viewer interested as well. Likewise James stayed true to his 'affordable wine for normal people' stance without being offensive, boorish or an 'inverted snob' about it. And both men clearly genuinely got on well with each other. JM has always been diffident about admitting to any real emotion on screen (remember Hammond's return to TG after the accident - Jeremy launched in with a bearhug, James backed away from Hamster like he was a live cobra & proffered a handshake). Oz gently poked fun at James' aversion without being cruel or offensive about it. It was...nice TV, pleasure-to-watch TV.
And the California one was, in my opinion, even better. I'm trying to avoid spoiling it because my advice is to buy the boxset - Amazon making both seasons available as a boxset is an excellent idea - & I sincerely hope it doesn't end there. I can surely hear alll non-French/Californian vintners gnawing their livers in frustration at how much Franco-Californian wine sales must have increased - what about Italian/Spanish wines, or Latin wines (Chile, Brazil), then there's Eastern European wines (Hungary, Romania, etc) & of course, the Antipodes of Australia & New Zealand. I can just see the tagline for Oz & James's Big Wine Adventure Series 3 now; "Oz does Oz in May..."
