With its abundant rain and formidable summer humidity, Japan is far from ideal wine terroir, so producers have fine-tuned their craft to adapt to the challenges of the climate.
KOSHU, JAPAN - Japanese food is famously paired with sake, but winemakers near Mount Fuji are on a mission to prove their bottles go just as well with crispy tempura and delicately sliced raw fish.
Tamura, Mercian's chief winemaker in the region, said the turning point for Koshu came in 2003, when a team of Japanese and French researchers from the University of Bordeaux discovered citrus notes in fermentation tests. "Foreign visitors often find that a bit mad" because of the time spent to attach the umbrellas, said the 28-year-old, who studied viticulture in France's Burgundy.
Imported wine, mainly from France, Chile and Italy, still makes up around two-thirds of the domestic market by volume, with prices ranging from cheap mass-produced plonk to eye-wateringly expensive vintages.However, in 2018, a special label was introduced to distinguish wine grown in the country, with the average price for a bottle around 2,000 to 3,000 yen .Such 'made-in-Japan' wine accounts for around five percent of the market, a share that is slowly increasing.
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