DAN'S WINE BLOG- JAPAN

Friday, August 12, 2022

This week I am talking about wine in Japan.?Japan is a country which has around five per cent of Australia’s land mass and almost thirteen times as many people. The capital, Tokyo, has a population which is the same as the whole of Australia. The population density of Tokyo is 6,158 people per square kilometre, compared with 443 people per square kilometre in crowded old Sydney. The Japanese wine industry is dominated by the large beer/spirits corporations, namely, Suntory, Sapporo and Kirin.

Like elsewhere around the world, wine sales in Japan slumped during the pandemic by approximately 10%. They are now recovering, with one producer, Chateau Mercian (a division of the Kirin beer empire), is aiming to boost the sales of wine within the country. They are aiming to do this by launching a new collection of “Mercian Wines” which are a collection of multi-country wine blends.

The first two wines in this range were launched in March this year – “Mercian Wines Blends Perfect Blend White” and the “Mercian Wines Blends Perfect Blend Red”. Both are blends of Spanish wine (from the northern hemisphere) with Australian wine (from the southern hemisphere). A novel concept. They have been specifically blended, after many, many trials, so as to appeal to the Japanese palate and remove the mystique surrounding most wines of region, terroir, etc. The aim is for delicious, easy drinking wines that people can consume and enjoy without having to delve into, or understand imported wine per se. The price point of these wines is the equivalent of US$10 a bottle.

Subject to the success of these initial wines, Mercian plans to roll out several other wines in this new range. They have already got a “Mercian Wines Bordeaux”, in the pipeline which will retail for just under US$30 a bottle and is unlike almost all other Bordeaux wines in that it is a Malbec dominant blend, rather than Cabernet dominant. This wine has already won a gold medal at the 2022 Mundus Vini tasting.

The company is aiming to achieve sales of around 80,000 cases of Mercian Wines this year.

On the traditional side of the Japanese wine industry, a few years ago I visited the Chateau Mercian vineyards and winery in Katsunuma (established in 1877), in the green rolling hills about an hour and a half’s train ride west of Tokyo (you can drink wine on the train in Japan). Chateau Mercian were leaders in the Japanese wine industry when in 1984 they started planting European grape varieties rather than just hybrids as all the other wineries had. At the same time they pioneered European trellising instead of the traditional Japanese pergola system where the vines are grown high and the grapes hang down at around head height, for easy picking.

I tasted my way through the entire Chateau Mercian range of wines as was then. They were all good wines and I was particularly impressed by their Koshu wines, especially their sparkling Koshu, the Chateau Mercian Katsunuma no Awa Non-Vintage. Koshu is considered a native Japanese grape variety as it arrived from overseas several hundred years ago, of unknown provenance.

The main Japanese red grape variety is Muscat Bailey A. This is a cross created in Japan just over 100 years ago to handle the freezing winter conditions. In flavour it is quite similar to the native Austrian red Zweigelt.

In a country stepped in tradition, it will be interesting to see whether there is demand for both the traditional wines and these new global blends.?Only time will tell!

Have a great week, stay safe,?#chooseaustralianwine ?and when possible enjoy?#emergingvarieties .?Cheers, Dan T.