TV Reviews : Briton Views the Grape Through History

That wine is far more than a mere thirst-quencher--that it has been an integral element in man’s religious and social history for 7,000 years--is a fact that Robert Mondavi has tried to unveil for the last two years.

In his Mondavi Mission, the Napa Valley vintner has toured the country showing a slide and sound show revealing how wine has been woven into the fabric of life in art, music, politics and culture, and that it is, when used in moderation, an element of the good and healthy life.

Yet the Mondavi message has thus far been seen only by wine societies, and preaching to the converted has rarely been an effective method for combating what Mondavi sees as an insidious anti-wine crusade. Mondavi refers to this as a neo-Prohibitionist movement that tells only of wine’s dangers.

Telling of wine’s joys and its historical significance is what Hugh Johnson does in a new 13-week series called “Vintage: A History of Wine,” which begins today at 5:30 p.m. on KCET Channel 28. It outdoes the Mondavi Mission on two levels: It’s a fascinating gazetteer on the places wine was first crafted and it reaches a far broader audience.

Produced by Michael Gill, a co-producer of the acclaimed “Civilisation” series with Sir Kenneth Clark, “Vintage” uses the same format: visits to places where wine was born and reared to greatness.

For those with a smattering of knowledge about wine, those who have heard that wine fills casks in Germany, Saint Emilion, Burgundy and California, Johnson brings the names alive. He walks the grand soils and explores the caves where the nectar was, and remains, a headliner.

But Americans consume less than 2 1/2 gallons of wine per person annually, a tenth of the consumption in most nations across the Atlantic. Thus few in this country know how deeply held are the feelings Europeans have for wine. So for many, this show should be an eye-opener.

Britisher Johnson, one of the world’s most prolific wine authors and a man with a droll sense of humor, delights most in touring the more remote and obscure places where wine was made (such as Soviet Georgia in tonight’s opener) and in the course of the series brings in the contributions of Louis Pasteur, the blind monk Dom Perignon, Hungarian-born Count Agostin Haraszthy and the Roman physician Galen, not to mention assorted kings, queens and churchmen.

The series also will generate a book, with the same title, to be released in November by Simon & Schuster at $39.95. The series was funded with a $1.4 million grant from Banfi Vintners of Old Brookville, N.Y.