Is Mary Ann sticking around San Francisco? Has Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City TV show been cancelled or renewed for a second season on Netflix? The television vulture is watching all the latest TV cancellation and renewal news, so this page is the place to track the status of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City, season two. Bookmark it, or subscribe for the latest updates. It tastes like a road trip down Pacific Coastal Highway with Michael driving and Mary-Ann and Mona laughing in the back.(Alison Cohen Rosa / Netflix) Vulture Watch Just as the books are the perfect balance of heart-warming and heart-breaking, this Riesling delivers pretty honeysuckle and jasmine struck through with cold steel and that classic kerosene whiff. Don’t panic! It’s not super-sweet or searingly dry. They’re too trad! So, I’ve gone rogue with Riesling Carmel Road 2015 (£17.50).

But neither bottle suits the anarchic spirit of these radically fabulous books. Edgar Halycon, Mrs Madrigal’s doomed love in the very first book, would savour this after cigars at his club. It’s surprisingly fresh and approachable for such a rich deep dark-fruit blend. HdV Belle Cousine Hyde de Villaine 2013 (£56.95) is that Merlot-led Bordeaux-style which so annoyed the French in 1976.

Mary-Ann would enjoy this in her later, sophisticated, incarnation. Cakebread Cellars 2015 (£39.00) is from cooler vineyards in the southern Napa Valley so has an underlying minerality that really sets off the unctuous oak. I considered the two key ‘Judgement of Paris’ categories: Chardonnay and a Bordeaux-style blend. Probably the most famous drink is on page one – a strong Irish coffee at the Bueno Vista gives Mary-Ann the courage to leave boring Cleveland for bohemian San Francisco. Mrs Madrigal prefers home-grown puff to wine but the books are full of bottles. You won’t find it on any map – search for Macondray Lane instead. I went on a pilgrimage to 28 Barbary Lane. Mrs Madrigal calls them her “logical family”. Here the priggish Mary-Ann, hippy Mona, roguish Brian and puckish Michael live, love and grieve. 28 Barbary Lane is a boarding house ruled by the mysterious Mrs Madrigal. They live at the top of a flight of rickety wooden stairs on a fairy-tale lane in Russian Hill. Maupin’s characters are the most fascinating people in the most fantastical place. Netflix are rebooting the series with Laura Linney returning as Mary-Ann and Olympia Dukakis reprising Mrs Madrigal. Nine novels later, Maupin published The Days of Anna Madrigal – please let it not be our final fix. Tales showed San Francisco in all its rainbow colours and put gay characters at the heart of the story giving them triumph and tragedy. Told from multiple perspectives at a wicked pace, Tales started as a newspaper serial featuring real news: the Jonestown massacre, the hateful Anita Bryant and even the Queen’s visit to California in 1983.

Tales of the city by armistead maupin