L’Orient Winery, Katsunuma Japan
TweetA pleasant 30 minute walk from our B&B led us to L’Orient Winery (also called Shirayuri Winery).
L'Orient Winery
We really struck gold with this one, as while we were wandering around the shop and tasting room the winery owner, Mr Takao Uchida, who was extremely friendly with everyone, started talking to us and was very interested that I was from England, as he and a some other winemakers in Katsunuma were heading to England to promote the regions wines in Britain.
He was also going to show a family around the vineyards and asked if we would like to tag along.
Of course we jumped at the chance!
The vineyards were just at the back of the tasting room, and he gave us a small cardboard box and some vine cutters and as he showed us around the vines he would stop and tell us to cut some grapes to try them. Very delicious they were too.
First time I’ve ever tried grapes straight off the vines.
Picking Grapes from the Vine
He also explained to us about the unusual umbrellas on the grapes that you often get in Japanese vineyards. (as you can see from the picture). These are to protect the grapes from the intense Japanese sun during the summer which can dry out and bake the grapes.
He also said that very often vineyard owners will trim the grape bunches on the vines which leads to larger sized grapes, compared to most western/new world grapes.
This larger grape results in a greater juice to skin ratio which I believe gives a lighter, more juice like kind of wine (which many Japanese wines tend to be in comparison to Old World wines).
(That’s me saying that, not Mr Uchida, as to be honest I couldn’t follow all of his Japanese).
He gave us a very interesting tour of his vineyards, showing us the different grapes he was growing and showing us how his vines grow up and across trellises as opposed to the more conventional rows, so you can walk underneath them.
This seems to be the general way vines are grown in the area, although I’m afraid to say I can’t remember why, although it was explained to me once. (I think it might have to do with shading the grapes from the intense Japanese summer sun).
Wine Tasting
After the tour we went back to the tasting room and he showed us around the room, showing us the copy of the Manga (Comic) Oshinbo he appears in and his Katsunuma Koshu wine in the manga. It’s not often you get to meet a character from a comic!
Oishinbo Manga with Mr Uchida
Wine Blending Kit
He also showed us the wine blending kit they sell where you get four small bottles of varietal wine, a measuring cylinder and a glass so you can try your own hand at creating your own blend of wine. Unfortunately at ￥6000 ($60) it was a bit expensive for us to buy at that time, although to be honest I regret that now as it would have been a lot of fun to try I think.
Our visit to L’Orient winery was definitely the highlight of our trip to Katsunuma and I highly recommend a visit if you are in the area, and if you go, like us, at a not so busy time you might be able to get a chat with the very nice owner, who actually recommended a local restaurant to us for lunch and even walked us there to introduce us to the restaurant owner.
A truly, lovely guy.
Us and Mr Takao Uchida
Oh, and on the other side of the car-park is a glass blowing factory where you can try blowing a sake shot glass (unfortunately wine glasses are too difficult!).
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Japan, Wineries | by MoIppai
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[...] also has the famous Sapporo brand name, so more people have obviously heard of it compared to say L’Orient.. Although to be honest I thought they only made [...]
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