KEY POINTS:
James May reckons there's one striking similarity between the world of car enthusiasts and wine buffs: "They're both full of bores."
"Although," continues May, who's best known as Captain Slow, one of the presenters of petrolhead show Top Gear, "I don't think you'd ever call car enthusiasts poncy,
but wine enthusiasts can be fantastically poncy to the point where you just want to kill them."
There are many times during his new TV series Oz and James's Big Wine Adventure (Prime, Sundays, 7pm) that he wants to throttle his sidekick and renowned British "wine ponce" Oz Clarke.
Whereas May likes to drink wine, Clarke, described by May as "a dimly iconic wine-drinking figure of British television", likes nothing more than having a chat about it.
"Oz can't open a bottle of wine without starting with the discussion first," says May on the phone from his home in London. "You know, sometimes Oz and his wine ponce friends get together and look at bottles of wine and then put them away again. That's like me going into the garage and looking at my motorcycle and then thinking, `No, I think I'll go for a walk'."
The six-part series follows the pair as they travel through French wine regions like Bordeaux, Provence and Champagne in an 1989 Jaguar XJ-S convertible, meeting winemakers, sampling wine and, in May's case, "getting a bit pissed".
Similar to Top Gear, which is entertaining even if you're not a car freak, Oz and James' adventures are for wine snobs and amateur quaffers alike.
"There has never really been a successful wine series," says May. "They just never work because they end up being people standing round talking about ... wine. Then somebody had the bright idea of putting us together: James can drive and Oz can try to teach him about wine and we'll send them off to France and it'll be a laugh."
Plus, thanks to the simple "wine facts" the pair throw in, you actually learn something about fine plonk.
"A lot of people are intimidated by wine because it's too complicated, but if you strip away all the specialist horseshit it is very interesting and a drink you can enjoy," says May.
The banter between "wine ponce" Clarke and May "the utter scruff" is a hoot, and it lightens the load of technical wine waffle. And May has a whistle - dubbed the Ozillator - that he blows when Clarke gets too pretentious.
On the flipside, May's behaviour gets up Clarke's nose too. Watching the show you marvel at how rude, grumpy and brattish May can be when they visit famous French chateaus where some of the world's best, oldest and most expensive wine comes from.
At Domaine du Joncier they meet winemaker Marine Roussel and May proceeds to down glass after glass of her finest, gets drunk, and Clarke brands him obnoxious and rude. Yet May gets away with it.
"They find it quite refreshing to have a non-wine ponce who just wants to have a drink," he reasons. "But if you get served shepherd's pie and you eat it and then ask for some more that's seen as a compliment. So when I met these winemakers I thought, `That's a really nice wine can I have some more', and I got a bit pissed and they actually quite like that and there were only a few who took offence."
The wife of Christian Seely at fancy Chateau Pichon Baron in Bordeaux takes a special shine to May's cheeky analysis of their finest wines which, among other things, he described as resembling "a bonfire" and "barbecued sausage".
And much to May's delight, many of the winemakers they visit have classic car collections. "They like to present this image of the struggling peasants but we met one bloke who said, `I am a peasant, my father was a peasant, I am at one with the soil, I am just a humble man, I make wine'. And then of course I went round the back of his house and found his 1950s Rolls-Royce."
Following the show, and a second series where the pair go to California, May has become more of a wine convert and at one point during the interview he even starts sounding like Clarke when asked if there are any good British wines.
He says there are areas of Kent where champagne grapes are grown, because it's a similar climate to the famous French region. Then he goes on to liken some of the British wines he's tasted to New Zealand sauvignon blanc (which he drinks often).
"It's fresh and honest-tasting wine. They are not complicated and heavy and intellectual, they're bright and simple and exuberant. See, I'm doing it. I'm talking shit."
And to finish, let's annoy the French a little - a favourite pastime of Mays, besides cars.
"I think if I had to chose the drink that was left in the world, beer's just easy," says May. "You have a pint, a game of darts and I often think the answer to everything is in beer. The French think the answer to everything is in wine, it's a philosopher's drink, but I think beer builds empires and gets the road mended, so I'll have a beer."
And another thing about France that baffles him is how they can't just go down to the boozer for a drink.
"They think still very much of wine being something you have with dinner. There were one or two people we met, the rustic types out in the sticks who were making some quite challenging local wines, who were quite baffled by the idea that I wanted to sit there and drink a glass of wine. They said I must have lunch and garlic soup.
"It's difficult to find the equivalent of a boozer where you just go and drink some beer and play darts and arse about. They don't quite do that. They're just wimps really."
LOWDOWN
Who: James May, Top Gear presenter and wine convert
What: Oz and James's Big Wine Adventure
When: Sundays, 7pm on Prime
